"All down, ladies," cried the call-boy, and downstairs they trooped.
The curtain rose on Piccadilly Circus, gray and dripping. Somber figures danced in a saraband of shadows to a yearning melody of Tschaikovsky. The oboe gave its plaintive summons; like sea-birds calling, the rest of the wood-wind took up the appeal until it died away in a solitary flute, whichsounded a joyful signal very sweet and low. A cymbal crashed: a golden ray of light came slanting on to the stone figure of Cupid, infusing him with life until, warm and radiant, he sprang from his pedestal to bewitch the sad scene. Roses tumbled from the clouds; lilies sprang up, quivering in the wind of dancing motion. A fountain gushed from the abandoned pedestal; the scene was a furnace of color. The Ballerinas led theCorps de Balletin a Bacchic procession round and round the twirling form of Cupid. With noise of bell and cymbal, they ran leaping through an enchanted Piccadilly seen in amber or cornelian. They might have stepped from a canvas of Titian dyed by the sun of a spent Venetian afternoon. Individual members of the audience began to applaud, and the isolated hand-claps sounded like castanets, until, as the dance became wilder, cheers floated on to the stage like the noise of waves heard suddenly over the brow of a hill.
Jenny, in a tunic of ivory silk sprayed with tawny roses, her hair bound with a fillet of gold, turned from the intoxication of the dance to search the stalls. Across thearpeggiosof the misted violins, his eyes burned a path. Yet, although she knew that he asked for a signal to show her consciousness of him, she could not give one. Had his glances seemed less important, she would have smiled; but since for the first time in her life a man stirred her, bashfulness caught her icily and, while her heart flamed, her eyes were cold. The curtain fell, rising again at once to let the bouquets fall softly round the silver shoes of the Ballerinas. The odor of stephanotis, mingled with the sharper perfume of carnations, seemed almost visible. The emotion of the audience struck the emotion of the dancers and kindled a triumph. The man in the stalls leaned forward, and the intensity of his gaze was to Jenny as real an offering as a bouquet. The curtain fell for the last time and as it touched the stage, instead of hurrying to her dressing-room, she stood a moment staring at what, for the first time, seemed an agent of deprivation not relief. Suddenly, too, she realized that she was very lightly clothed, and, as she walked slowly up thestone stairs to the dressing-room, was not sure whether she was sorry or glad.
In the crowd of chatting girls, Jenny began to call herself a fool, to rail at her weakness, and to ascribe the whole experience to the extra Guinness of a first night. Yet all the time she wondered if he would be waiting at the end of the court; there had been no wave of hand or flutter of a programme to confirm the hopes of imagination. Moreover, what was he really like? Outside he would be "awful," like the rest of them. Outside he would smirk and betray his sense of ownership. Outside he would destroy the magic that had waked her at last from the dull sleep of ordinary life. She began to hurry feverishly her undressing, and the more she hurried, the more she dreamed. At last, having, as it seemed, exhausted herself with speed, she sat down on the bench, and, looking round, perceived that the other girls were well in front of her. She lost confidence and wished for support in the adventure.
"Coming out to-night?" she asked Irene.
"If you like," said the latter.
Jenny, although she longed to be out of the theater, could not be quick that night. As she watched the other girls leave the dressing-room, she asked herself why she had wanted Irene to wait for her. If he were outside, Irene would spoil it all; for, together, they would giggle, and he would think what a shocking couple of girls he had fallen in with. She wished now that Irene would become impatient and go, but the latter seemed perfectly willing to dawdle, though by now they were the only two inhabitants of the dressing-room.
"Oh, do move yourself!"
"Oh, I can't, Irene. Whoever made these unnatural stays?"
"We shall get locked in," said Irene.
But Jenny was dressed at last, and together they passed out into the cool September night. He was there. Instinctively Jenny recognized the careless figure in opera hat and full black coat. She drew back and clutched her friend's wrist, aware of hot blushes that surely must flame visibly in the darkness.
"Who's he?" whispered Irene.
"Who's who?"
"The fellow by himself at the end of the court?"
"How ever on earth should I know? Do you think I'm a walkingAnswers?"
The two girls passed him by. He hesitated; then, as if by an effort, raised his hat.
Irene giggled foolishly.
"How d'ye do, Tootoose?" said Jenny, self-possessed through his embarrassment.
"I liked your dancing," he said simply.
"Did you? Who ca——?" She stopped. Somehow the formula was inadequate.
"Can't we go and have supper somewhere?" he asked.
"Just asyoulike."
"Where shall we go?"
"It doesn't matter to me," said Jenny.
"Gatti's?"
"Um."
"But do you like Gatti's?" persisted the stranger.
"It's all right."
"We can all squash into a hansom, can't we?"
"Rather," said Jenny.
They rattled off to Gatti's, and were soon sitting on red velvet, rulers of gayety.
"What's your name, Claude?" inquired Jenny.
"Raymond," he said.
"Oo-er! What a soppy name!"
The young man hesitated. He looked for a moment deep into Jenny's eyes: perceived, it may be, her honesty, and said:
"Well, as a matter of fact, my real name is Maurice—Maurice Avery."
"Oh, and he wasn't going to tell us," cried Jenny, clapping her hands. "We shall have to call him careful Willie."
"No, I say, really, do forgive me for being a silly ass."
"Now he's being rude to himself."
Here a fat waiter interposed with a dish, and Avery had time to recover himself. Meanwhile, Jenny regarded him. She liked his fresh complexion and deep-blue eyes. She liked better still his weak, girlish mouth and white teeth. She liked best of all his manner, which was not too easy, although it carried some of the confidence of popularity.
"Whatever made you come on the first night? I think the ballet's rotten on the first night," said Jenny.
"I'm awfully glad I did. But, as a matter of fact, I had to. I'm a critic. I'm going to write a notice of the ballet for thePoint of View."
Something in the intonation of this announcement would have warned anybody of the world that Avery's judgment had not long ago been demanded for the first time.
"A reporter?" asked Jenny.
"Well, a sort of reporter."
"You don't look much like a reporter. I knew a reporter once who was going to photograph me in a bathing-dress forFluffy Bits. But his flat was too high up for this little girl."
Maurice Avery wished that Jenny were alone. He would in that case have attempted to explain the difference between a reporter and a dramatic critic. Under the circumstances, however, he felt that the subject should be dropped, and turned politely to Irene.
"You're not talking much."
"Ah, but I think the more."
The conversation became difficult, almost as difficult as themacaroni au gratinwhich the three of them were eating. Maurice wished more than ever that Irene was out of the way. He possessed a great sense of justice which compelled him to be particularly polite to her, although his eyes were all for Jenny. The unsatisfactory meal evaporated in coffee, and presently they stood on the pavement.
"I say, I ought to drive you girls home," said Maurice. "But to-night I absolutely must get back and finish this notice intime to catch the three o'clock post. Couldn't we all three meet to-morrow?"
Inwardly he lamented the politeness which led him to include Irene in the suggested reunion.
"All right, Willie Brains," said Jenny.
"Where?"
"Oh, I don't know. Outside the Palace. Good night."
They shook hands discreetly, and though Maurice held Jenny's hand longer than was necessary, he held Irene's just as long in case she might have noticed and felt hurt by the greater attention paid to her friend.
Jenny and Irene turned in the direction of the Tube station by Leicester Square.
"He might have stood us a cab home," complained the latter.
"Why should he?" said Jenny.
Irene looked at her in perplexity.
"You're usually the one to get all you can out of a fellow. And it was your turn to ask to-night."
"I like Maurice," Jenny replied. "And what's more, I think I shall like him again to-morrow."
The afternoon arrived. Jenny and Irene, walking down Shaftesbury Avenue, perceived Maurice gazing at the photographs outside the Palace.
"There he is," cried Jenny.
Avery turned round.
"Youarepunctual," he exclaimed.
Tea, at whatever tea-shop they drank it, was dull. The acquaintance did not seem to advance.
When it was time for the girls to go into the theater, Maurice said desperately:
"Could I drive you—both home to-night?"
At the last moment he was afraid to exclude Irene. "I'll wait outside," he went on, "till you come out."
Rain fell that night, and Maurice was glad when, along the court, he could see them strolling towards him.
"A hansom, eh?" he said. "Or let's have a drink first."
In the Monico, they sat round a table and nothing mattered to Maurice and Jenny, except eyes. The room seemed full of eyes, not the eyes of its chattering population, but their own. Never before had a London night seemed so gay. Never before hadcrême de menthebeen dyed so richly green. They began to discuss love and jealousy. As Romeo hesitated before he joined the fatal masquerade, Maurice was seized with an impulse to make himself as poor a thing as possible.
"I couldn't be jealous," he vowed. "I think everybody can be in love with two or three people at once."
"I don't," said Jenny.
"Oh, yes, it's absurd to be jealous. Quite absurd. Different people suit different moods. The only trouble is when they meet."
He had caught hold of Jenny's hand while they were speaking, and now she drew it away.
"I think I know what he means," said Irene.
"You think so," scoffed Jenny. "You! You're potty, then."
Maurice felt sorry for Irene and weakly took her hand. She let it recline in his listlessly. It was cold and damp after Jenny's vitality.
"If I loved a man," said Jenny, "I should be most shocking jealous."
"What would you do if you met him with another girl?" asked Maurice.
"I should never speak to him again."
"Wouldn't that be rather foolish?"
"Foolish or not, that's what I should do."
"Well, I'm not jealous," vowed Maurice. "I never have been."
"Then you're silly," asserted Jenny. "Jealous! I'm terribly jealous."
"It's a mistake," said Maurice. "It spoils everything and turns a pleasure into a nuisance."
"I don't think I'm jealous of you-know-who," put in Irene.
"Oh, him and you, you're both mad!" exclaimed Jenny. "But if ever I love a man——"
"Yes," said Maurice eagerly.
Two Frenchmen at the next table were shuffling the dominoes. For Maurice the noise had a strange significance, while he waited for the hypothesis.
Jenny stared away up to the chandeliers.
"Well?" said he. Somebody knocked over a glass. Jenny shivered.
"It's getting late," she said.
"What about driving home?" asked Maurice.
Outside it was pouring. They squeezed into a hansom cab. Again his politeness seemed bound to mar the evening.
"Let's see. Irene lives at Camden Town. We'd better drive to Islington first and leave Jenny, eh?"
Then Jenny said quite unaccountably to herself and Irene:
"No, thanks. We'll drive Irene home first."
Maurice looked at her quickly, but she gave no sign of any plan, nor did she betray a hint of the emotion he would have been glad to see.
With the glass let down against the rain, they were forced very near to one another as the horse trotted along Tottenham Court Road shining with puddles in the lamplight.
"This is jolly," said Maurice, bravely putting an arm round each waist and holding Irene a little closer for fear she should feel that she was the undesired third person. Having done this, he felt entitled to kiss Jenny first and turned towards her lips. She drew back, whispering:
"Ah, so near and yet for far."
Then, since he had offered to kiss Jenny, he felt bound to kiss Irene. The latter allowed the compliment as she would have let him pick up a handkerchief. Arrangements were made to meet again on the morrow at the same place, and at last the cab was pulled up some two hundred yards from Irene's house. Maurice jumped out and shook hands very politely and waved to her as she ran up a side-street. Then he sat backbeside Jenny in the cab. The driver turned his horse and for a minute or two they traveled silently through the rain and lamplight.
"Jenny," he whispered, "Jenny, won't you kiss me now?"
She yielded herself to his arms, and while the wind rattled the glass shield, while the raindrops danced in the road before them, while lights faltered and went out in passing window-panes, Jenny nestled closer, ardent and soft and passionate.
"Are you glad we're alone?" he whispered.
"Rather."
"I suppose you knew I've been burning all the time to sit with you like this?"
"No."
"Oh, I have, Jenny. Jenny, I saw you when you first came on the stage, and afterwards I never saw anyone else. I wish you lived a thousand miles away."
"Why?"
"Because then we should travel together for a thousand hours."
"You date."
"You're so delightful."
"Am I?"
"I wish Irene weren't coming to-morrow. We shall have such a lot to talk about," he vowed.
"Shall we?"
"What on earth made me ask her?"
"It's done now."
Maurice sighed. Then he caught her close again and breathless they sat till Jenny suddenly cried:
"Gee! Here's Hagworth Street. Goodnight!"
At the end of the road, under the tall plane tree where once Jenny had danced, they sat in the old hansom cab, while the steam rose in clouds from the horse and the puddles sang with rain and the driver smoked meditatively. The world was fading away in sounds of traffic very remote. The wetness of the night severed them from humanity. They needed no bluePacific haven to enrich their love. They perceived no omen in the desolation of the London night.
"What times we shall have together," said Maurice.
"Shall we?" the girl replied.
"It's all happened so exactly right."
"It does sometimes," said Jenny.
The horse pawed the road, impatient of the loitering. The driver knocked out the ashes of his pipe on the roof.
"Imustgo now," she said.
"Must you?"
"Yes."
"One more kiss."
To Maurice each kiss of Jenny's seemed a first kiss.
"Isn't it glorious?" he exclaimed.
"What?"
"Oh, everything—life and London and you and I."
He stood in the road and lifted her on to the pavement.
"Good night, my Jenny."
"Good night."
"To-morrow?"
"Rather."
"Good night. Bless you."
"Blessyou," she murmured. Then, surprised by herself, she ran through the rain as swift as the shadow of a cloud, while the horse trotted southward with a dreaming passenger.
UPSTAIRS in the room she shared with May, Jenny sat before the glass combing her hair, while outside the rain poured down with volume increasing every moment. The wash of water through the black, soundless night, lent the little room, with its winking candle, a comfortable security. The gentle breathing of May and the swish of the hairbrush joined the stream of rain without in a monotone of whisperings that sighed endless round Jenny's vivid thoughts. Suddenly she sprang from her reverie, and, pulling up the blind with a rattle, flung open the window to dip her hands into the wet darkness. May sat up, wild-eyed from sleep. The candle gasped and fluttered.
"Whatever is it?" cried May.
"Oh, Maisie, Maisie," said her sister; "it's raining real kisses to-night. It is, really."
"Have you gone mad?"
"Oh, let me get into bed quick and dream. Oh, May, I'd go mad to dream to-night."
And soon the rain washed down unheard, where Jenny, lying still as coral, dreamed elusive ardors, ghostly ecstasies.
THE next morning sunlight shone in upon Jenny's rose-dyed awakening. Flushed with dreams, she blinked, murmuring in sleepy surprise:
"Oo—er! if it isn't a fine day."
"It's glorious," corroborated May emphatically.
"Oh, it's lovely; let's all wave flags."
"You were a mad thing last night," said May.
"Don't take any notice, dee-ar. I was feeling funnified."
"Opening the window like that and shouting out in your sleep and cuddling me all night long."
"Did I?" inquired Jenny curiously.
"Did you? I should think you did. Not half."
"Well, if you're a little love and make me a cup of tea, I'll tell you all about it."
"About what?"
"About him. Oh, May, he's lovely. Oh, he's It."
"Who is?"
"A fellow I met this week."
"What, another?"
"Ah, but this one's the One and Only."
"Go on, I know your One and Onlies."
"Oh, but May, he's a young dream, is My Friend the Prince. I'm going to meet him this afternoon with young Irene."
"And have a proper game with him, I suppose, and do the poor boy in and say good-by."
"I hope I sha'n't never say good-by to him. Never, I do."
"You have got it bad."
"I know. Listen, May. He's rather tall and he's got a nice complexion, only his mother says he's rather pale, and he's got very white teeth and a mouth that's always moving, and simply glorious eyes."
"What color?"
"Blue. And he talks very nice, and his name's Maurice. But whatever you do, don't say nothing to mother about it."
"As if I should."
Mrs. Raeburn came into the room at that moment.
"Are you lazy girls going to get up?"
"Oh, ma,don'tbe silly. Get up? Oh, what a liberty!"
"Lying in bed on this lovely morning," protested Mrs. Raeburn.
"That's it. Now you carry on about the lovely morning. Young May's already woke me up once to look at the sun. All I know is it makes the room look most shocking dusty."
The day deepened from a morning of pale gold to an amber afternoon, whose melting splendor suffused the thin blue autumn sky with a glittering haze. Jenny stood pensive awhile upon the doorstep.
"Hark, what a noise the birds are all making. Whatever's the matter?"
"They're pleased it's fine," said May.
"Oh, they're pleased, too, are they?" Jenny exclaimed, as, with a long shadow leading her slim form, she went through a world of russet leaves and cheeping sparrows to meet her lover.
At the club there was a message from Irene to say she was ill and unable to keep the appointment.
"That's funny," Jenny thought. "Seems as if it's bound to be."
Through Leicester Square she went with eyes that twisted a hundred necks in retrospect. Down Charing Cross Road she hurried, past the old men peering into the windows of bookshops, past thedelicatessenshops full of gold and silver paper, past a tall, gloomy church haunted by beggars, hurrying fasterand faster until she swung into the sunlight of Shaftesbury Avenue. There was Maurice studying very earnestly the photographs outside the Palace Theater.
"Here I am, Claude," she laughed over his shoulder.
"Oh, I am glad you've come," he said.
"Irene couldn't come. She's ill. Shame, isn't it?"
"Really," said Maurice, trying to seem concerned. "Let's go and have tea."
"Oh, you unnatural man. Aren't you sorry she's ill?"
"I can't be sorry you're alone. Where shall we have tea?"
"Whereyoulike."
"I know a funny little shop off Soho Square where there aren't many people."
"Don't you like people, then?"
"Not always."
Soho Square held the heart of autumn that afternoon. London had surrendered this quiet corner to pastoral meditation. Here, among the noise of many sparrows and sibilance of dead leaves on the unfrequented pavement, one realized in the perishable hour's flight the immortality of experience.
"More birds," said Jenny.
"Don't they make a row and don't the leaves look ripping in this light?"
"There's another one getting excited over the day."
"Well, it is superb," said Maurice. "Only I wish there weren't such a smell of pickles. I say, would you mind going on ahead and then turning back and meeting me?"
"Oo-er, whatever for?"
"I want to see how jolly you'd look coming round the corner under the trees."
"You are funny."
"I suppose you think I'm absurd. But really, you know, you do look like a Dresden shepherdess with your heart-shaped face and slanting eyes."
"Thanks for those few nuts."
"No, really, do go on, won't you?"
"I certainly sha'n't. People would think we was mad."
"What do people matter?"
"Hark at him. Now he's crushed the world."
"One has to be fanciful on such an afternoon."
"You're right."
"I suppose I couldn't kiss you here?"
"Oh, of course. Wouldn't you like to sit down on the curb and put your arm round my waist?"
"As a matter of fact, I should."
"Well, I shouldn't. See? Where's this unnatural tea-shop?"
"Just here."
"It looks like the Exhibition."
It was a dim coffee-shop hung with rugs and gongs. The smoke of many cigarettes and joss-sticks had steeped the gloom with Arabian airs.
"It is in a way a caravanserai," said Maurice.
"A what?" said Jenny.
"A caravanserai—a Turkish pub, if you like it better."
"You and Iareseeing life to-day."
"I like my coffee freshly ground," Maurice explained.
"Well, I like tea."
"The tea's very good here. It's China."
"But I think China tea's terrible. More like burnt water than tea."
"I'm afraid you don't appreciate the East," he said.
"No, I don't if it means China tea."
"I wish I could take you away with me to Japan. We'd sit under a magnolia and you should have a kiss for every petal that fell."
"That sounds rather nice."
"You know you yourself are a bit Japanesy."
"Don't say that. I hate to be told that."
"It's the slant in your eyes."
"I don't like my eyes," said Jenny emphatically.
"I do."
"One pleased, any old way."
"I love your eyes," said Maurice earnestly. "But I made a mistake when I said you were Japanese. You're Slav—Russian, you know."
"I must be a procession of all nations, according to you."
"But you are frightfully subtle."
"Anything else? You're sure I'm not a bighead?"
"A what?" said Maurice.
"A pantomime bighead."
Maurice laughed.
"Men always talk about my eyes," Jenny went on. "They often call me the girl with the saucy eyes, or the squiny eyes,whichI don't like. And yet, for all my strange appearance, if I want a man to be struck on me, he always is."
"Did you want me to be struck on you?"
"I suppose I must have."
"Is that why you made us see Irene home first—so that you could be alone with me?"
"I suppose so. Any more questions? You're worse than my sister, and she'd ask the tail off a cat."
"Hum!"
"Cheer up, Puzzled Willy."
"Have you ever—er—well, insisted on having the person you wanted before?"
"No, I've not. Not like that. I can't make myself out sometimes. I don't understand myself. I do a thing all of a sudden and the next minute I couldn't tell anybody why I done it."
"I might have thought you were running after me," said Maurice.
"Who cares? If you did, it wouldn't matter to me. If I wanted you to make a fool of yourself, you'd make a fool of yourself."
"But supposing I made a fool of you?" asked Maurice, slightly nettled.
"I don't think you could."
"But I might. After all, I may be as attractive to women as you are to men. Perhaps we've both met our match. I admityou fascinate me. From the first moment I saw you, I wanted you. I told you that. And you?"
"I wanted you," said Jenny simply.
"It is love at first sight. And yet, do you know, I had an instinct to make you not like me."
"You couldn't."
"Couldn't I?" said Maurice, breathless. The heavy air of the coffee-shop vibrated with unheard passionate melodies.
"No," said Jenny, gazing full at the young lover opposite, while Eros shook his torch, and the gay deep eyes, catching the warm light, shone as they had never shone for any man before. "But why did you try to make me not like you?"
"I felt afraid," said Maurice. "I'm not very old, but I've made two girls unhappy, and I had a presentiment that you would be the revenge for them."
"I've made boys unhappy," said Jenny. "And I thought you were sent to pay me out."
"But I shall always love you," said Maurice, putting his hand across the little table and clasping her fingers close.
"So shall I you."
"We're lucky, aren't we?"
"Rather."
"I feel sorry for people who aren't in love with you. But don't let's talk here any more. Let's go back to my rooms," he suggested.
"I've got to be in the theater by half-past seven."
"I know, but we've plenty of time. It's only just half-past five."
"Where do you live?"
"Westminster. Looking over the river. I've got a largish studio. Quite a jolly room. I share the floor below with a friend."
"What's he like?"
"Castleton? Funny chap. I don't expect you'd care for him much. Women don't usually. But don't let's talk about Castleton. Let's talk about Jenny and Maurice."
Outside the fumes of the coffee-shop were blown away by soft autumnal breezes.
"We'll dash it in a taxi. Look, there's a salmon-colored one. What luck! We must have that. They're rather rare. Taxi! Taxi!"
The driver of the favored hue pulled up beside the pavement.
"Four-twenty-two Grosvenor Road, Westminster."
"I wonder," said Maurice, glancing round at Jenny and taking her slim gloved hand in his. "I wonder whether taxis will ever be as romantic as hansoms. They aren't yet somehow. All the same, there's a tremendous thrill in tearing through this glorious September weather. Oh, London," he shouted, bouncing in excitement up and down on the springy cushions, "London, you're wonderful."
Jenny shook his hand as a nurse reproves a child.
"Keep still," she commanded. "The man'll think you're potty."
"But I am potty. You're potty. The world's potty, and we're in love. My sweet and lovely Jenny, I'm in love with you.
"Oh, Maurice, youareawful," she protested.
But, Apollo urging him, Maurice would finish:
"Lunatic!" she said. "And don't talk about getting thin. Look at me. Nothing but skin and grief."
"Nonsense," said Maurice, and went on rhyming:
And then two more lines that will have to be filled in like your figure, and then:
"They all of them said: 'No it's not.'"
"Well, you're not much more than a rasher of wind yourself," commented Jenny.
"Ha! ha!" shouted Maurice. "That's good. Hullo, here's Trafalgar Square. Aren't we going a pace down Whitehall? Jenny, there aren't any words for what I feel."
He hugged her close.
"Oh, mind!" she protested, withdrawing from the embrace. "People can see us."
"My dear, they don't matter. They don't matter a damn. Not one of them matters the tiniest dash."
Nor did they indeed to lovers in the warm apricot of a fine September sunset. What to them were dusty clerks with green shining elbows, and government officials and policemen, and old women with baskets of tawny chrysanthemums? Fairies only were fit to be their companions. The taxi hummed on over the road shadowed by the stilted Gothic of the Houses of Parliament, hummed out of the shadow and into Grosvenor Road, where the sun was splashing the river with pools of coppery light. The stream was losing its burnished ripples and a gray mist was veiling the fire-crowned chimneys of Nine Elms when the taxi drew up by 422 Grosvenor Road.
"Right to the very top," called Maurice. "I do hope you don't mind."
As he spoke he caught her round the waist and gathered her to his side to climb the stairs.
"It's an old house. I've got an attic for my studio. Castleton's out. An old woman buried somewhere near the center of the earth cooks for me. When you see her, you'll think she's arrived via Etna. Jenny, I'm frightfully excited at showing you my studio."
At last they reached the topmost landing, which was lit by a skylight opaque with spiders' webs and dust. The landingitself was full of rubbish, old clothes, and tattered volumes and, as if Maurice sought to emulate Phaethon, a bicycle.
"Not in these!" said Jenny. "Youdon'tcarry that up and down all these stairs every day?"
"Never," said Maurice gayly. "Not once since I carried it up for the first time a year ago."
"You silly old thing."
"I am. I am. But isn't it splendid to be able to be silly?"
He opened the door of the studio and Jenny walked into what seemed an astonishingly large room. There were windows at either end and a long skylight overhead. The ceiling was raftered and on the transverse beams were heaped all sorts of things that young men bring to London but never use, such as cricket-bats and tennis-racquets and skates.
The windows on one side looked out over the river, over barges going up on the full flood, and chimneys flying streamers of pearl-gray smoke. The windows on the other side opened on to a sea of roofs that rolled away down to a low line of purple cloud above whose bronzed and jagged edge the Byzantine tower of Westminster Cathedral rose in silhouette against a sky of primrose very lucent and serene.
There was a wide fireplace with a scarred rug before it and on either side a deal seat with high straight back. There were divans by the same craftsman along the whitewashed walls, and shelves of tumbled books. Here and there were broken statues and isolated lead-bound panes of colored glass, with an easel and a model's throne and the trunk of a lay figure. There was a large table littered with papers and tins of pineapple and a broken bag of oranges very richly hued in the sunset. The floor was covered with matting, over which were scattered Persian rugs whose arabesques of mauve and puce were merged in a depth of warm color by the fleeting daylight. On the walls were autotypes of Mona Lisa and Botticelli's Venus, of the Prince of Orange and little Philip the Fourth, on his great horse. There was also an alleged Rubens, the purchase of Maurice's first year at Oxford, from the responsibility of whosepossession he had never recovered. There were drawings on the wall itself of arms and legs and breasts and necks, and a row of casts in plaster of Paris. Here and there on shelves were blue ginger-jars, Burmese masks and rolls of Florentine end-papers. There was a grandfather-clock, lacquered and silent, which leaned slightly forward to ponder its appearance in a Venetian mirror whose frame was blown in a design of pink and blue roses and shepherds. The window-curtains were chintz in a pattern of faded crimson birds and brown vine-leaves stained with mildew. In one corner was a pile of brocaded green satin that was intended to cover the undulating horsehair sofa before the fire.
Maurice's room was a new experience to Jenny.
"What a shocking untidy place!" she exclaimed. "What! It's like Madge Wilson's mother's second-hand shop in the New Kent Road. You don'tlivehere?"
"Yes, I do," said Maurice.
"Sleep here?"
"No; I sleep underneath. I've a bedroom with Castleton."
"Untidy, like this is?"
"No, rather tidy. Bath-tub, Sandow exerciser, and photographs of my sisters by Ellis and Walery. Quite English and respectable."
Jenny went on:
"Doesn't all this mess ever get on your nerves? Don't you ever go mad to clear it up?"
"You shall be mistress here and clear up when you like."
"All right, Artist Bill. I suppose you are an artist?"
"I don't know what I am. I'd like best to be a sculptor. You must sit for me."
"The only artist I ever sat for I took off my belt to in the finish."
"Why?"
"He annoyed me. Go on. What else are you?"
"I'd like to be a musician."
"You've got a jolly fine piano, any way," said Jenny, sittingdown to a Bechstein grand to pick out some of Miss Victoria Monk's songs with the right hand while she held a cigarette in the left.
"Then I write a bit," said Maurice. "Criticisms, you know. I told you I wrote a notice of your ballet. I'm twenty-four and I shall come into a certain amount of money, and my people live in a large house in Surrey and oh, I—well—I'm adilettante. Now you know my history."
"Whatever on earth's a dilly—you do use the most unnatural words. I shall call you Dictionary Dick."
"Look here, let's chuck explanations," said Maurice. "I simply must kiss you. Let's go and look out at the river."
He pulled her towards the window and flung it wide open. Together they leaned out, smoking. The sparrows were silent now. They could hear the splash and gurgle of the water against the piers, and the wind shaking the plane tree bare along the embankment. They watched the lamp-lighter go past on his twinkling pilgrimage. They listened to the thunder of London streets a long way off. Their cigarettes were finished. Together they dropped to extinction in a shower of orange sparks below.
Maurice drew Jenny back into the darkening room.
"Look! The windows are like big sapphires," he said, and caught her to his arms. They stood enraptured in the dusk and shadows of the old house. Round them Attic shapes glimmered: the gods of Greece regarded them: Aphrodite laughed.
"Don't all these statues frighten you?" said Jenny.
"No, they're too beautiful."
"Oh!" screamed Jenny. "Oh! She moved. She moved."
"Don't be foolish, child. You're excited."
"I must go to the theater. It's late. I do feel silly."
"I'll drive you down."
"But I'll come again," she said. "Only next time we'll light the gas when it gets dark. I hate these statues. They're like skelingtons."
"I'm going to make a statue of you. May I? Dancing?"
"If you like."
"I adore you."
"So do I you," said Jenny.
"Not so much as I do."
"Just as much, Mr. Knowall," she said, shaking her head.
They kissed once more.
"Jenny, Jenny!" It was almost a poignant cry. "Jenny, I wish this moment were a thousand years. But never mind, we shall always be lovers."
"I hope we shall."
"Why only hope? We shall. We must."
"You never know," she whispered. "Men are funny; you never know."
"Don't you trust me?"
"I trust nobody. Yes, I do. I trust you."
"My darling, darling!"
Then downstairs they went, closer locked on every step, close together with hearts beating, the world before them, and the stars winking overhead.
THE next fortnight passed quickly enough in the rapture of daily meetings and kisses still fresh and surprising as those first primroses of spring which few can keep from plucking. There was nobody to interrupt the intimacy; for Irene remained ill, and the rest of the world was as yet unconscious of the affair. Nevertheless, with all these opportunities for a complete understanding, the relation of Maurice and Jenny to one another was still essentially undefined. Their manner of life in that first fortnight of mutual adoration had the exquisite and ephemeral beauty of a daylong flower. It possessed the elusive joy that mayflies have in dancing for a few sunny days above a glittering stream. It had the character of a pleasant dream, where thought is instantly translated into action. It was the opening of a poem by Herrick or Horace before the prescience of transitoriness has marred the exultation with melancholy.
Everything favored a halcyon love. October had come in, windless and very golden. Such universal serenity was bound to preserve for lovers the illusion of permanence that exists so poignantly in fine autumn weather, when the leaves, falling one by one at rare intervals, scarcely express the year's decay. The sly hours stole onward in furtive disguises. Milk-white dawns evaporated in skies of thinnest azure and noons of beaten gold, until in pearl-gray dusks each day met its night delicately. For Maurice and Jenny even the night conjured nowintry thoughts, and when the moon came up round and tawny, floating unsubstantially above the black house-tops, an aged moon lacquered with rust, full of calamities, these lovers were not dismayed; although they were not influenced to quick and fervid enterprises.
No doubt, if they had wandered, treading violets under foot, beneath the silver moons of Spring, there would have been a more rapid encounter of emotions. But the tranquillity of nature affected Maurice particularly. He was like a man who, having endured the grief of long separation, meets his love in joyful security. It was as if with a sigh he folded her to his arms, conscious only of acquiring her presence. He had from the fret of London gained the quiet of high green cliffs and was no longer ambitious of anything save meditation on the beauty spread before his eyes. He had bought the much-desired book, and now was idly turning its leaves, safe in the triumph of possession.
Jenny, too, after her long experience of casual attraction, was glad to surrender herself to the luxury of absent effort; but in her case the feverishness of a child, who dreads any discussion that may rob the perfect hour of a single honeyed moment, made her fling white arms around his neck and hold him for her own against invisible thieves.
There exist in the heart of a London dawn a few minutes when the street lamps have just been extinguished, but before the sun has risen, when the city cannot fail to be beautiful even in its meanest aspects. At such an hour the Bayswater Road has the mystery of a dew-steeped glade; the Strand wears the frail hues of a sea-shell; Regent Street is crystalline. Even Piccadilly Circus stands on the very summit of the world, wind-washed and noble.
To Maurice and Jenny London was always a city seen at dawn; so many dull streets had been enchanted by their meetings, so many corners had been invested with the delight of the loved one's new appearance. But, though they were still imparadised, a certain wistfulness in looks and handclaspsshowed that they both instinctively felt they would never again tread the pavement so lightly, never again make time a lyric, life a measure.
On the afternoon before Jenny's birthday, she and Maurice had gone to Hampstead, there to discuss the details of a wonderful party that was to celebrate in the studio the lucky occasion. They had wandered arm in arm through the green alleys and orderly byways of the mellow suburb, dreaming away all sense of time and space. It was the very culmination of St. Luke's summer, and nowhere had the glories been more richly displayed. Robins sang in Well Walk, and Michaelmas daisies splashed every garden with constellations of vivid mauve. After tea they walked up Heath Street and on a wooden seat stayed to watch the sunset. Below them the Heath rolled away in grassland to houses whose smoke was heavy on the dull crimson of a stormy dusk. The sun sank with an absence of effect which chilled them both. Night, with a cold wind that heralded rain, came hard on the heels of twilight. The mist rose thickly from the lower parts of the Heath, and the night's jewelry was blurred.
Maurice spoke suddenly as if to a signal.
"Jenny, we seem to have spent a very long time together now in finding out nothing."
"Whatdoyou mean?" she asked.
"I mean—we've been together a frightful lot, but I don't know anything about you and you don't know anything about me."
"I know you're a darling."
"Yes, I know that, but——"
"What!" she broke in, "well, if you don't properly go out with yourself."
"No, I mean—bother about me being a darling—what I mean is—what are we going to do?"
"What do you want us to do?"
"You don't help me out," he complained. "Look here, are you really in love with me?"
"Of course I am," she said softly.
"Yes, but really violently, madly in love to the exclusion of everything else in the world?"
"Kiss me," said Jenny, answering him from her heart.
"Kissing's too easy," said Maurice. "Kissing proves nothing. You've probably kissed dozens of men."
"Well, why not?"
"Why not? Good Heavens, if I give up my whole being to you, do you mean to say you're not going to think anything of kissing dozens of men?"
"Don't be silly. To begin with, they did all the kissing."
"That makes no difference."
"I think it makes all the difference."
"I don't," he maintained.
"I do."
"Look here, don't let's quarrel," he said.
"I'm not quarrelling. You began."
"All right. I know I did. Only do think things out."
"What's the matter with your brain to-night?" Jenny asked.
"Why?"
"You've taken a sudden craze for thinking."
"Oh, do be serious," he said petulantly. "Here are we. We meet. We fall in love at once. We roam about London in a sort of mist of love and we haven't settled anything."
"Why can't we go on roaming about, as you call it?"
"We can—up to a point. Only——" he hesitated.
"Only what?"
"Look here. Are you sure I'm the right person, not a possible, but the person you've dreamed of, thought of?"
"I'm sure you're a darling."
Jenny had no use for subtleties, no anxiety to establish the derivation of an affection which existed as a simple fact. She was not a girl to whose lips endearing epithets came easily. She had many words ready to describe everything except her deepest emotions. In love she became shy of herself. Mauricehad a stock of sweet vocatives which she would have been too proud to imitate. "Darling" said what she wished to say, and it was difficult even to say that.
"Well, do you want anybody else?" he asked.
"No."
"You won't get tired of me in another month?"
"Don't be silly."
"You said the other day you didn't trust anybody. Do you mean to say seriously that you don't trust me?"
"I suppose I do. You're different."
"Only suppose?" asked Maurice.
"Well, I do."
"You're not certain. Great heavens, child, can't you see what a terrible thing that is to say?"
"I don't see that it's so very terrible."
"But it kills me dead. I feel all the time you think I'm masquerading. I feel like a figure with a mask in a carnival. I meet you in another mask. I say, 'Take it off,' and you won't. You shrivel up."
"I don't know who you're getting angry with," said Jenny. "I haven't said nothing."
"Nothing!" cried Maurice. "It's nothing to tell somebody who adores you—good heavens, it's raining now! Of course itwouldrain in the middle of grappling with a situation. What a damnable climate this is!"
"I'm glad you're going to quarrel with the weather a bit for a change," said Jenny. "I think you're in a very nasty mood."
"You don't understand me," said Maurice.
"I don't want to." She spoke coldly.
"Jenny, I'm sorry I said that. Darling girl, do forgive me."
The wind had risen to half a gale. Heath Street was full of people hurrying to shelter, and the entrance to the Tube station was crowded.
"Don't be angry with me," Maurice whispered as the lift stopped. "I was tired and foolish. Jenny, I'm sorry."
"If any other man had spoken like you spoke," said Jenny,"I'd have got up and gone away and never seen him again, not ever, not however much I might want to, I wouldn't let myself. I couldn't."
Further discussion was killed by the noise of the train, and Jenny and Maurice could only sit speechless, gazing at a long line of damp people, most of them carrying rain-dabbled bunches of Michaelmas daisies. By the time Piccadilly was reached Maurice was himself again, full of plans for to-morrow's birthday party.
"Seeing those people in the Tube with those bluish flowers, what d'ye call them, made me think of a party I had for my birthday when I lived with an aunt in the country," said Jenny.
As it was not yet time for her to go into the theater, they turned aside into the Monico and drank Quinquina Dubonnet while the final arrangements were being made for the party.
"Now, who exactly is coming?" asked Maurice.
"Irene, if she's well enough, and Elsie Crauford, who isn't bad, but who's got to be told off sometimes, and Madge Wilson, who you haven't met, but she's a pretty girl, and Maud Chapman and perhaps Gladys West. Oh, and can't I bring Lilli Vergoe? She's a bit old—you know—but she's a nice girl and I used to know her when I was little."
"Right," said Maurice. "That makes seven. Then there'll be me and Castleton and Cunningham and Ronnie Walker and probably one or two odd ones'll drop in. You'll turn up about four—eh? It's lucky your birthday comes on a Sunday. Must you go now? All right, my sweet. Till to-morrow. By Jove, we'll have a great time, won't we?"
"Rather," said Jenny.
Then just as she prepared to cross to the other side of Piccadilly, from the island on which they were standing, Maurice called her back.
"Jenny, darling, I am forgiven, aren't I?"
"Of course."
She looked back before she turned the corner into RegentStreet and waved to him. He sighed and went off very happy to meet Castleton for dinner.
It was characteristic of Jenny that she issued her invitations very coldly. Most girls grew enthusiastic over such events, but Jenny did not believe in "showing herself up" by demonstrations of delight.
"Coming to tea with that friend of mine to-morrow?" she asked Madge Wilson.
"Of course I am, duck, I'd love it," said Madge, a round-faced, fluffy-haired girl, pretty, but always apt to be mistaken for somebody else.
"It's nothing to rave over," said Jenny. "It's in a studio something like your mother's shop. But there's a jolly fine piano and I daresay it won't be bad."
"I shall love it," said Madge.
"Well, don't wave too many flags."
To the other girls Jenny offered the entertainment casually, like a chocolate-cream.
Then she went to look for Lilli Vergoe in the dressing-room of the second line of girls. Lilli seemed much surprised by the invitation.
"You don't want me," she said.
"Don't be silly. Why ever not?"
"Look at me."
"I can't see nothing the matter."
"I ask you, do I look like a birthday party? Never mind, kiddie, I'll come."
"Don't make a favor of it old girl. Only I thought you'd like it."
"Why don't you ever come up to Cranbourne Street and see me?" asked Lilli.
"You're always miserable. It gets on my nerves."
"I wish you would come sometimes. You've never been since that day you told me you'd joined the ballet."
"Well, you was Melancholy Sarah that day, wasn't you, Lilli?"
The call-boy's summons closed the conversation, and Jenny ran off to her own dressing-room for the last touch of powder.
When she came out of the theater that night, it was blowing a full October gale. There was nobody by the stage door in whom she felt the slightest interest, so without loitering and with pleasant anticipation of to-morrow's fun, she went straight home.
Mrs. Raeburn was sitting by the kitchen fire when Jenny got back.
"You're early," she said.
"I know. There wasn't anything to stay out for. It's a terrible night, pelting in rain. Shame after the glorious weather we've been having. It's my birthday to-morrow, too."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Raeburn. "And I'd forgotten all about it."
"You always do," said Jenny.
"I ought to have remembered this time. It was weather just like we've been having before you were born, and it come on to blow and rain just like this the very night. Twenty years! Tut-tut!"
"I don't feel a day older than fourteen," asserted Jenny.
"Tell me, do you enjoy being alive?" asked Mrs. Raeburn.
"Oh, what a question! Of course I do."
"You don't ever feel it was a pity you ever come into the world?"
"Of course I don't. Why should I? I think I'm a very lucky girl."
"You don't ever tell me anything about yourself," said Mrs. Raeburn. "So I don't know."
"There's nothing to tell."
"I wish you'd get married."
"Whatever for?"
"Aren't you a bit gay?"
"Gay! Of course not."
"I wish you'd settle down," urged the mother. "There's a lot of nice young chaps as would be glad to marry you."
"But I don't want to be married. I sha'n't ever get married. Ugh! Besides, what's going on as I am done? I'm enjoying myself."
"Too much, I'm afraid," said her mother.
"I don't want to get married," Jenny repeated. "I don't see that you did much good to yourself by getting married. I think you threw yourself away. Everybody must have liked you when you was a girl, and you go and marry Dad. I think you were potty. And yet you want me to do the same. I can't understand people."
"Why couldn't you have been nicer to that young baker chap?"
"Young baker chap? Yes, then I woke up. Him! Why, he used to hang his shoulders up when he took off his coat. Besides, he's common."
"You're getting very dainty."
"Well, look at the men you want me to marry. Why—they're awful—like navvies half of them. Oh, don't carry on, mother. I know what I want."
"Jenny," said her mother sharply, "you haven't done anything wrong, have you?"
"Of course not."
"Don't do anything wrong, there's a good girl. I was very upset about Edie, but nothing to what I should be about you."
"This little girl's all right. What's the matter with going to bed?"
"You go on up. I'll wait for your father."
"You're in a funny mood to-night, Mrs. Raeburn," said her daughter. "Good night."
When she reached the bedroom Jenny woke up her sister.
"Look here, young May, you haven't said nothing to mother, have you, about My Friend the Prince?"
"Of course not, you great stupid."
"Well, don't you, that's all, because I'll go straight off and live with one of the girls if you ever dared say a word about him. Mother wouldn't understand there's nothing in it."
"You know your own business best," said May sleepily.
"That's quite right," Jenny agreed, and began to undress herself to a sentimental tune and the faint tinkle of hairpins falling on the toilet-table.
In bed, she thought affectionately of Maurice, of his gayety and pleasant manner of speech, of his being a gentleman. He must be a gentleman because he never said so. Other girls had love affairs with gentlemen, but, with one or two exceptions, she believed they were all swankers. At any rate Maurice and Colonel Walpole were different from Irene's Danby (long idiot) and Madge Wilson's Berthold (dirty little "five to two!") and Elsie Crauford's Willie (him!), all examples of swank. Still in some ways it was a pity that Maurice was a gentleman. It would never mean a wedding. Those photographs of his mother and sisters had crushed that idea. Even if he asked her to marry him, she wouldn't. Other girls might brag about their education, their schools in Paris, their better days and dead gentlemen fathers, but they were all ballet girls, not one of the Mrs. Bigmouths could get away from that fact. Ballet girls! They got a laugh in comic songs. Ballet girls and mothers-in-law! They might gabble in a corner to each other and simper and giggle and pretend, but they were ballet-hoppers. And what of it? Why not? Wasn't a ballet girl as good as anybody else? Surely as good as a stuck-up chorus girl, who couldn't dance and couldn't act and couldn't even sing sometimes. They might be fine women with massive figures or they might have sweetly pretty Chevy Chases and not mind what they did after supper, but they weren't any better than ballet girls.
After all, Maurice did not look down on her. He did not patronize her. He loved her. She loved him. With that thought flooding her imagination, Jenny fell asleep and lay buried in her deep white pillow like a rosebud in a snowdrift.
COLUMBINE lay sleeping on her heart. The long white hands were clasped beneath those cheeks round which tumbled the golden curls. The coverlet, thrown back in a restless dream, revealed her bent arms bare to the elbow. The nightgown allowed a dim outline of her shoulder to appear faintly, and where a pale blue bow had come untied, the dimple in her throat was visible. The gay, deep eyes were closed beneath azure lids, but the pencilled eyebrows still slanted mockingly, and round her red lips was the curve of laughter. Awake, her complexion had the fragility of rosy porcelain: in sleep the color fled, leaving it dead white as new ivory.
Columbine lay sleeping, a miniature stolen from the world's collection. The night wore on. The wind shook the old house. Dawn broke tempestuously.
Now should Harlequin have hurried down the unreal street and, creeping in magically, have kissed her a welcome to the sweet and careless "twenties" that would contain the best of his Columbine's life.
THE studio, looking very cheerful for Jenny's birthday, had achieved a Sabbath tidiness. It was, to be sure, a tidiness more apparent than real, inasmuch as it consisted of pushing every disorderly object into a corner and covering the accumulation with an old Spanish cope. Beneath this semicircle of faded velvet lay onions and sealing-wax, palette, brushes, bits of cardboard, a mixture of knives and forks, a tin of pineapple still undefeated, many unanswered letters, a tweed overcoat, and other things that gave more to utility than beauty.
The fire blazed in the big fireplace and rippled in reflection about the sloping ceiling. Chairs were set in a comfortable crescent round the tea-table, and looked as invitingly empty as the Venetian mirror. The teacups, where each one held the fire's image, showed an opal in the smooth porcelain. Anticipation brooded upon the apartment, accentuated by the bell of a neighboring church that rang in a quick monotone. In the high deal ingle sat three young men smoking long clay pipes; and by the window facing the river Maurice stood breathing upon the glass in order to record his love's name in evanescent charactery upon the misted surface.
At last the monotonous bell ceased its jangling. Big Ben thundered the hour of four, and the host, throwing up the window, leaned out to a gray, foggy afternoon.
"Here's Jenny," he cried, drawing back so quickly into the studio that he banged his head against the frame of the window. The three young men in the ingle rose and, knocking outtheir pipes, stood with their backs to the fire in an attitude of easy expectation. Maurice by this time was dashing out into the street to welcome Jenny, who was accompanied by Irene.
"Hurrah!" he said. "I was afraid you might get lost. How are you now?" he went on, turning to Irene.
"I'm quite all right now," replied the latter.
"She's in the best of pink," said Jenny.
"Pink enough to climb all these stairs?" asked Maurice, laughing.
"I expect so," said Irene.
"Any of the others come yet?" Jenny inquired on the way up.
"Only Castleton and Cunningham and Ronnie Walker."
"I mean any of the girls?"
"No, you're the first—and fairest."
Irene, for all her optimism, was beginning to feel exhausted.
"I say, young Jenny, does your friend here—Maurice—I suppose I can call him Maurice?"
"Idiot! Of course."
"Does Maurice live much higher?"
"Yes, you may well ask," said Jenny. "What! He's Sky-scraping Bill, if you only knew."
"We're nearly there," said Maurice apologetically. Outside the door of the studio they paused.
"What are their unnatural names?" asked Jenny, digging Maurice as she spoke.
"Cunningham, Castleton and Walker."
"They sound like the American Comedy Trio that got the bird. You remember, Ireen. Who cares? I shall call them Swan and Edgar for short."
"That's only two."
"Oh, well, I can remember Walker."
Maurice opened the door, and Cunningham, Castleton and Walker advanced to make their bows.
"This is Miss Pearl, and this is Miss Dale."
"Pleased to meet you," said Irene.
Jenny said nothing, but shook hands silently, taking the measure of the trio with shrewd and vivid glances.
"Sit down, won't you?" said Cunningham.
"Have a chair?" Walker suggested.
Castleton looked at Jenny.
"Isn't he tall?" she commented. "Doesn't he remind you of somebody?"
"No," said Irene vaguely.
"He does me. That Russian juggler—you know—who was struck on Queenie Danvers.Youknow—the one we used to call Fuzzy Bill."
"Oh, him?" said Irene.
"Call me Fuzzy Bill, won't you?" put in Castleton. "It's a pleasantly descriptive name. I shall answer to that." Indeed, he did, for from that moment he became "Fuz" and never heeded a summons expressed differently.
Just then there was a ring at the front door, and downstairs Maurice rushed to admit the visitors. Presently he came up again.
"Damned kids," he grumbled.
"You don't mean to say they fetched you all that way for nothing?" exclaimed Jenny.
"It's good for him," Ronnie Walker asserted.
"Yes, but what a dreadful thing," said Jenny. "Fancy tearing all that way for nothing. I should go mad."
Another ring punctuated Jenny's indignation. Everybody to be forewarned ran to the window.
"It is them this time. Gladys! Elsie!" she called. Then in critical commentary: "What a dreadful hat Elsie's got on."
"She bought it yesterday.