The rest seemed somehow smothered and she could not catch the words.
Claudia tapped at the door in considerable embarrassment. Would she have to announce herself, and what would she say?
She pushed open the door gently and she saw a most remarkable sight, nothing less than a pair of exquisitely shaped little legs and feet in white silk tights that seemed to belong to a frilly pink lampshade. That was Claudia’s first impression, and then she saw that someone had her back to her, delving down into a huge trunk. Her second impression was that she had never seen a room that was so blue! There were pale blue curtains, wall-paper and bed-spread, blue flowers on the carpet and satin bows everywhere.
“Is that you, Madam Rose?” said a voice from the depths, which was rough and unrefined, but was not Cockney. “Half a jiff. I can’t find my pink shoes and——”
“I beg your pardon,” said Claudia, standing in the doorway, “but I am not Madame Rose. The maid did not——”
Claudia had just time to catch a glimpse of a piquant little face with great surprised blue eyes, when there was a cry of pain. The lid of the trunk, a heavy, clamped one, had descended on the small hand.
“Oh, gracious!” said the ballet-like person, hopping about holding her hand; “oh! that damned trunk! Ouch! My goodness! it’s nearly broken my knuckles.”
Her little face was screwed up with pain, so that she hardly looked at her visitor. Claudia’s eyes caught sight of a jug of water steaming away on the untidy washstand, and she quickly went over to it.
“Here,” she said, “put your hand in this jug. That will stop the pain and prevent it discolouring. Yes, I know how those things hurt.”
The hand was so small that it easily slid down into the jug. Claudia marvelled at its size, and then she noticed that the girl was hardly up to her shoulders. Why, it looked like a small child. This could not be The Girlie Girl, surely?
Then she became aware that the wrinkles had come undone and that the big blue eyes were looking at her.
“My word!” The blue eyes stared at her with the directness and naïveté of a child. The small mouth dropped open a little as companion in the process. “Who are you? I thought at first you were Madame Rose with my new set of curls, and then cocking half an eye at you, I thought you must be Maudie de Vere. But—who on earth are you?”
“Is your hand better?” said Claudia, half smiling, half embarrassed. “Please tell me first, are you—Fay?”
The girl looked at her with a sudden seriousness. “Yes, and I guess who you are. You’re Jack’s sister, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” returned Claudia. “I’m Jack’s sister. I am sorry to come in this unceremonious way into your bedroom——”
“Oh! that doesn’t matter,” said Fay, never taking her eyes off Claudia’s face, “everybody comes in here when they want me, because I’m hardly ever out of it.... My!”—her feelings overcoming her—“you are handsome! Jack told me you were good-looking, but he didn’t tell me you were such a stunner. I never saw anyone so pretty.”
It was impossible to resent the frank criticism or the speaker as she stood there in her most extraordinary attire. For the fluffy, chiffony petticoats ended just below the knees, and over her shoulders she had thrown a lacy matinée jacket, adorned with pale blue ribbons and showing a neck and throat perfect in a miniature way. Her hair—jet black and in remarkable contrast to her eyes, which seemed as though they should belong to a head of flaxen hair—was rather short, but fell about her shoulders in curly masses.
Claudia was completely at a loss how to answer this very naive tribute to her charms. But Fay was used to making the entire conversation, and she went on without noticing any lack of conversational powers on the part of her visitor.
“I might have known it wasn’t Maudie, though, because she uses so much scent it’s like a chemist’s shop coming into your room. I like a little sprayed on myself, but she puts it on with a garden hose. I’ve told her about it heaps of times. I think it’s such bad taste, don’t you?”
It was not quite the conversation Claudia had vaguely imagined. And yet, though Fay gabbled on, her words coming at a tremendous speed, she felt that her hostess was taking good stock of her. At the back of those childish eyes there was a shrewd little brain. She showed this by her next words:
“You’re hopping mad with Jack and me, aren’t you? I never saw Jack in such a state as the morning when the thing came out in the newspaper.” She gave a little chuckle. “I must say I enjoyed it. I like to keep my name before the public, for one thing. You’ve got to keep on working some sensation, or you’re passed over.” She pulled her hand out of the jug and dried it on a towel, which she flung on the very ornate bed. It had a lace coverlet over pale blue satin, and enormous bows of pale blue satin ribbon ornamented the corners. A huge nightdress-case of the same satin painted with pink roses was lying on the frilled pillows, which were also threaded with pale blue.
She came over to where Claudia was standing. “I say, don’t be mad with me. I like you. I didn’t think I would. I thought you’d be starchy and turn up your nose at me. It was nice of you to think of that hot water for my hand. Sit down and make friends with me, will you?”
Claudia appreciated her charm as she stood in front of her, playing with her sable muff. It was the charm of the gamine-child.
“I—I came to have a little talk with you,” returned Claudia, smiling. You simply could not help smiling at it.
“That’s right. Sit down. Bless me, there never is a chair that isn’t littered up.” She took a handful of clothes and threw them carelessly on the floor. “Now just sit down there and tell me what the people you know say about me. I suppose I shouldn’t have married Jack, and I told him at first he’d better run away and play with Lady Somebody or other. But he wouldn’t go. He’ll tell you that if you ask him.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” returned Claudia as Fay energetically seized a brush and commenced to brush her hair.
“Oh! bother!” she said, stopping short, “and I want those curls. Madame Rose is a blighter all right. She promised them for to-day. Well, Polly will have to rake those other curls over and make them presentable.” She went to the door and shouted, “Polly! Polly! come here quick.”
A red-haired girl came running in, her hands all wet and soapsuddy. “Miss Fay, I’m just washing your stockings.”
“Leave ’em and come and dish up these curls. That old beast hasn’t sent my new set. Look, Polly, this is Mr. Jack’s sister. Isn’t she lovely?”
The red-haired girl stared at Claudia with her greeny-brown eyes. Claudia had never been inspected by a servant in such a manner before. Her lips twitched, but she assisted Polly by looking straight at her.
“She ain’t much like the Capting, is she?” Polly said in strong Cockney. “But then, I ain’t a bit like my brother. He’s in the army too. I always say as brothers and sisters——”
“Don’t chatter so much. Take those curls and vanish.” Fay waved her small hand imperiously, and Polly, grabbing a bunch of curls, went out. “We don’t want her in here listening to us, do we?” said Fay confidentially. “Not but that Polly knows most everything. She was on the halls once herself—doing small stunts with an acrobat—and she got rheumatic fever. My mother saved her life and kept her going for goodness knows how long. When mar died, she came to me as a sort of dresser. And she runs everything here.” She waved her hand round the apartment. “The tradesmen don’t do her. As far me, I’m no good at housekeeping. Don’t know a chicken from a turkey. Of course, Jack says she isn’t smart enough. He says he wants me to have some proper servants. But, what’s the trouble? I’m comfortable, and that’s everything, isn’t it?”
“The best of servants can only make you comfortable,” conceded Claudia, looking at the littered apartment. There was a cup and saucer on the dressing-table, and the spoon was on the floor. Some biscuits and an orange were side by side with a powder-puff and a scent-spray. One satin slipper rested on the pin-cushion, and a pair of silk stockings were thrown over the mirror, which had enormous wings and occupied a large amount of the available space. Fay was busily putting up her hair as she talked.
“You know, I’m awfully gone on your brother. I never met anyone like him before.” Now she was energetically rubbing cold cream all over her neck and arms. “I like to make up at home. It’s much more comfortable. Those dressing-rooms are so draughty. Have you ever seen me? But of course you have. I suppose everybody has. I top the bill at most of the halls now. And I make a row when I don’t. Do you like my turn?”
“I’m sorry to say I seldom go to variety houses,” said Claudia, feeling somehow that she ought to have seen her.
“What!”—she turned, with her face smothered with grease. “You haven’t seen me do my turn? Jack must take you this very night. He’ll be along soon.”
“Oh! I—er—am afraid I’m engaged to-night.”
Polly returned and planked the curls down on the dressing-table.
“Here you are, miss, and Mr. Robins is out in the hall. He wants to see you.” She grinned. “He’s got a bucket for yer.”
“What!” Fay screamed gleefully, “old Joey Robins! Why, this is worth a week’s screw.” She rushed to the door just as she was and called out: “Come in, Joey, my boy. I’m awful glad to see you.”
She flung her arms round the neck of a man whose face was typically that of a low comedian of the old school. He was funny even off the stage, and Claudia vaguely remembered the name. He was somewhere about fifty, and had a habit of blinking as he talked, like a parrot. Claudia found out afterwards that he had acquired it for stage purposes—the audiences shrieked at him when he just blinked and did nothing else—and he could not rid himself of it in private life.
“Come in, do. Joey, this is my sister-in-law. You know Joey? You may not know me, but you know Joey all right. Joey Robins on the Razzle-Dazzle! My! that was a good number, wasn’t it?”
She put her head on one side and her hands on her hips, and began to skip about, humming a catchy tune.
Claudia found the comedian was extending a large and very rough hand. “Glad to make your acquaintance, miss. I say, Fay, there’s a turnip for you outside. Shall I fetch it in?”
“Rather! You don’t mean it’s—— Oh! Joey, you darling!” It was an immense bouquet of the old-fashioned kind, and it was tied with long, streaming ribbons of white satin. “I told ’em not to stint the ribbing. I said my little gal don’t get married hevery day. Well, my dear, how does it agree with you?”
“Oh, fine!” she laughed, using a little brush to darken her eyelashes. “Wasn’t you surprised when you saw it in the papers?”
“No,” said the man, still blinking, “not exsakerly surprised. I always said you was fit to be a princess. I see you’re at the Royal this week? Best advertisement you hever ’ad, my girl.”
“And I don’t forget I owe it all to you,” she said earnestly, leaving off with one eyelash blacked. “Yes,” turning to Claudia, who did not feel left out in the cold, because Fay took it for granted that she was interested in this queer, common man who had come in, “he got me my first engagement, and I don’t forget it.”
“Oh, go on! it was nothing.”
“Well, I shall never make light of it,” she said, with a vigorous nod of her small head, now entirely over-weighted with the curls she had pinned on. They spoilt the shape of her head and stuck out in masses about her ears. Fay went on quickly with the making-up process. “You gave me a shove here and a shove there, and now I’ve got into high society, I don’t forget those who helped me. I’m going to give a dinner to celebrate the wedding—you must come”—nodding friendly-wise to Claudia—“and so must you and your missus, Joey.”
“It’s kind of you, Fay, but I’ll be up north for the next month.” He looked at a large gold watch, the chain of which meandered over a waistcoat of startling pattern. “Can’t stay many minutes. Got to get down to Reading to-night. Came up a purpose to bring you the turnip.”
“You’re a duck, Joey. Polly! Polly! Bring in a bottle of fizz. Sharp’s the word! Yes, Joey, it’s a special occasion and I’d like her to have some too. You know”—speaking to both of them—“I never take nothing until after I’ve done my work, unless it’s a glass of stout, but Joey’s got to drink me a proper health. Come on, Polly, bring a glass for yourself.”
“Hallo, Polly!” said Joey, “still ginger, eh? My, we’re getting on in the world, ain’t we? You fancy yourself, waiting on the wife of a capting, don’t yer? I’ll do that for yer. You hold the glass.”
“It’s the best fizz,” said Fay, who was now putting the rouge thickly on her cheeks. “It costs ten shillings a bottle and that’s wholesale price too. I know a man—do you know Sam Levy? He’s got an interest in a champagne business, or something. Anyway, I told him to get me some of the best. Jack says it’s too sweet, but I like it that way. The other stuff tastes like ginger-ale. When I have fizz I like to know it’s fizz. But there”—she turned to Claudia, who at half-past six in the evening somehow found herself holding a glass of champagne—“I suppose you drink champagne every night of your life, don’t you?”
At that instant Jack came in at the door, which was wide open.
“Just in time old boy,” called out Fay. “This is my old friend Joey Robins—my husband.”
“Please to meet you sir—I mean capting,” murmured Joey Robbins, blinking at him. “You’ve got the smartest little woman in the world as your wife, sir. There’s no one to touch her in her perfession. Lord! she did for old Joey long ago. She fairly beat his heart to a pulp.”
Jack had just caught sight of Claudia, and his face was a curiosity to behold.
“But,” said Joey, with a rough note of kindly earnestness in his voice, “no larking any more, Fay, my dear. Be a good child, be a good child.”
Fay slipped her arm round Jack’s neck, standing on a footstool to do so.
“We’re both going to be good children, aren’t we, Jack? We’ve both been a bit flighty, but we’re going to be good now. I’m going”—her blue eyes opened widely, and she gave Jack a hearty hug—“to be a responsible person in future. Drink, all of you. Drink to the health of a pair of naughty children who are going to be good!”
It was not a bit as Claudia had planned it, but she found herself obediently drinking the health of her brother and sister-in-law in very bad and very sweet champagne.
CHAPTER VIII
“TWO IN A STUDIO”
Two days later Claudia was wrinkling her brows over her visiting-list, and sadly contemplating the people she had been shunting, and who must be asked to dinner, when she was surprised to hear Gilbert’s voice outside the door. He had been confined to bed for the last few days with a sharp attack of influenza, and Neeburg had forbidden him to go out.
She rose and opened the door. Outside was her husband, with his hat and coat on.
“Gilbert!”
“I’m going down to my chambers for an hour or two. I’m sick of this coddling, and the only thing to do is to work it off. It was a mistake to take to bed at all. I’m convinced you bring on illnesses that way.”
“Come in a minute. Did Dr. Neeburg say you might go?”
“No. Doctors always try and keep you in bed, and Fritz is no better than the rest of them.”
His face was flushed and unhealthy in colour. His eyes seemed more sombre than ever, and he was obviously quite unfit to go out of the house.
“Gilbert, this is madness. Have you looked at yourself in the glass? At least wait to see the doctor this morning. Surely your work can wait for awhile, or one of your clerks can come down as he did yesterday?”
“I’ve got to be in court on a big case four days hence, and all my books and things are down there. Lots of people have influenza and don’t stop indoors. I’m strong; I’ll soon throw the thing off if my mind is occupied.”
She did not know what to say. She knew it was very unwise for him to go out, but, after all, she could not force him to stay indoors. Neeburg had told her privately that he was very much run down and needed a good rest. Was it a good thing to tell a man he was not as strong as he thought he was? Gilbert was always so proud of his robust health, and so contemptuous of weaker men. An old friend of his, a barrister, who often secured his services, had recently had to go for a sea-voyage owing to nerve-strain, and Gilbert had commented on it with a complete lack of sympathy and understanding. People who got ill easily he dubbed “weaklings.”
“Well, Gilbert,” she said gravely, “of course I can’t make you keep to the doctor’s orders, but I do ask you to give yourself a fair chance. You know”—tentatively—“you have really been overworking for a long time, and your constitution may be strong, but you can’t tax it when you have an attack of influenza.”
“I’m all right,” he said rather truculently. “And I’m going down in the car to a well-warmed room. It won’t harm me, and I shall feel easier in my mind. I loathe having nothing to do.”
She looked at him, and wondered what he would do if he had a real long illness. The whole man was his work, and his work was the man. He had practically no hobbies, no pursuits, no amusements. When she had married him he had been keen on golf, but even that he had dropped.
Suddenly she said to him, “Do you ever wonder how I spend my days, Gilbert?”
He looked at her in dull surprise. “Oh! women always find something to do, don’t they? Dressmakers, shopping, et cetera. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. You know Frank Hamilton is painting my portrait, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think you did tell me. Is it going to be good?” He was obviously not very interested, and anxious to be gone.
“Yes, I think so, this time. But he needs a good many sittings.... Do you like Frank Hamilton?”
“I never thought about it. Yes, I suppose he’s all right for an artist. Well, I must go now. I daresay I shan’t be away many hours.”
“Gilbert,” she said pleadingly, “don’t go. You are not fit, really. If you don’t want to stop in bed, stay here with me and read some books, or if your eyes hurt, I’ll read to you. There’s such an amusing biography here.”
He shook her hand off his coat-sleeve and went towards the door. “I’m too restless, Claudia. Tell Neeburg I had to go.”
He was gone, and Claudia walked back to her desk. Though various thoughts were buzzing through her head, inflammatory, rebellious thoughts, she completed the list of undesirables and requested the honour of their company at dinner. Most of the stodgy ones were friends of Gilbert’s family and good and worthy men at the Bar, with their good and worthy wives.
At last Claudia laid down her pen and took up the telephone. Frank’s voice answered her at the other end.
“I say, I told you I couldn’t come this afternoon for the sitting. But I find I can, after all. Is it still convenient?”
“Yes, and I’m delighted to hear it. I haven’t seen you for three whole days—an eternity!”
“What a pretty speech!” mocked Claudia; “but I’ve got the grain of salt here.”
“You can laugh at me if you like, but it only makes things worse. I sometimes wonder if you are quite heartless. Don’t you believe in any man?”
“Not—not if I can help it. Well, I’ll be with you about three. I can’t talk now; I’m busy.”
But she sat for half an hour quite unoccupied, at least she had no tangible occupation. She wrote no letters and she sent no more invitations. The only thing she did was to light a cigarette and stare out of the window at the bare branches of the trees, just faintly beginning to bud. And yet she was not thinking of the view, for she looked for quite five minutes at the Albert Memorial, and it was an edifice she loathed. Her face was set and expressionless, only her eyes burned like live, glowing coals in her head.
Rhoda Carnegie was lunching with her. She had rung up earlier in the day and requested the meal, saying quite frankly that a man had failed her and that she wanted some decent food.
Claudia neither liked nor disliked her, she had got used to her, for every now and then she had drifted into the Iverson household.
Rhoda was late, but as Claudia knew her habits she had ordered lunch a quarter of an hour later than usual.
“I’m late, dear. So sorry. But I put on six hats and hated them all, so I’ve come out in the ugliest.” It was a queer-shaped one, that showed the tip of her nose and part of an ear.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get run over when you wear a hat like that?” laughed Claudia.
“It does make the day seem gloomy, I admit. But a hat like this intrigues a man. He doesn’t know what else there is to it. There’s nothing like mystery about a hat. Well, and how goes l’affaire Hamilton?”
Claudia started to frown and then changed her mind. Rhoda was not actively malicious, except when she hated a rival, and a frown would be wasted on her.
“Oh! quite nicely,” she said coolly, inwardly a little startled that it should have come to that. “I think the picture will be a success this time.”
“Ah! if I were interested in a portrait-painter I should certainly have my portrait painted, but that type doesn’t appeal to me, and I hate having to talk art and look at daubs that are not half as nice as the things they represent. We hate one another most cordially. Two poseurs together, you know. It takes a poseur to catch a poseur.”
Claudia stopped in the act of raising a glass of hock to her lips. “You consider him a poseur?”
“Haven’t you spotted that?” drawled Rhoda. “I wish I could afford a decent cook. No, you wouldn’t. You think he has an artistic soul. I am certain he hasn’t. But if you don’t rub the veneer too hard I daresay it won’t come off while you are playing with it.”
“I don’t see why you call him a poseur,” returned Claudia. “Unless you think we are all poseurs and—well, one has to wear clothing!”
“I’ll call it acting if you like it better. Wasn’t it Meissonier who said, ‘Painters always have in them something of the actor, they have the instinct for attitude and gesture’? But he’s clever, he acts rather well. So do I. And a pose is justified by its cleverness.”
She leaned forward on the table and smiled in her hostess’s face.
“My dear, don’t think I am trying to say that his love for you is a pose. But—well, naturally. You are very handsome and an excellent companion. Shall I tell you what he is not?”
“If you like,” said Claudia, with an affectation of indifference.
“He is not working for art’s sake. He is not generous, except to himself. He is not quite a gentleman—yes, let me finish—either by birth or natural feeling. And he is not—good enough for you, ma chère.”
“There is hardly any question——” began Claudia hotly.
“Claudia, don’t pretend. It’s not necessary with me. I daresay he is more amusing than Gilbert, but still, he’s not the right man. One’s husband is an accident; a lover is sometimes—a mistake. After all, in spite of the sweetest poodles and coon-can, love is the one thing that interests women. But be careful with Frank Hamilton. He is the sort of a man who gives a woman away, and discretion is the first requisite for a lover.”
Claudia ignored the bigger issues. It was impossible to snub Rhoda.
“You don’t like him, and therefore you are prejudiced,” she replied, playing with a fat little quail on her plate. “What do you know about him?”
“I know he is the son of a small country solicitor who used to live at Salisbury. Now he lives in Kensal Green Cemetery. His grandfather was the butcher of that town, and I believe his grandfather wanted to put Frank into his business, but——”
“Oh, Rhoda! don’t be ridiculous. Besides, what does it matter what his grandfather was? You’re talking like Lady Currey now. And it’s so old-fashioned!”
“Pooh! I don’t care about people’s ancestors, although I think a butcher peculiarly unpleasing, let us say. Loinchops and rumpsteaks are so prosaic. No, that isn’t the point. He hasn’t got the innate feelings of a gentleman, and with his upbringing he would let any woman down. There are some things that men of the world with decent breeding don’t do. And now tell me what the scandal is about Lucy Morgan and the card that dropped on the floor?”
At three, Claudia left Rhoda with the box of cigarettes—she had already smoked five—and the latest thing in novels, and went to Frank’s studio. She felt rather self-conscious as she ascended the stairs, for now someone had labelled it l’affaire Hamilton it seemed to have taken a different complexion. Well, other women were all having flirtations, why not she? She had never meant to; she recalled how she had looked on such affairs during her engagement—not with disgust, her upbringing was against that, but she had been sorry for the women who had to fill up their lives in underhand ways. Life had looked so easy then, now she was beginning to realize that life is most subtle, most complex, most alluring and—most disappointing.
She involuntarily stopped and gave a delicate sniff as she entered the studio. It was full of some over-sweet perfume.
“Have you upset a bottle of perfume?” she asked. “This is sweetness twice distilled.”
He went to the window hastily. “Don’t accuse me of using perfume. One of my sitters.”
“Heavens! who uses such a perfume?”
He busied himself with the chair she was to sit in. “Oh, you’ve met her. Mrs. Jacobs.”
“Mrs. J—— Oh, yes! the yellow lady with much wealth. Well, you might make something odd and bizarre out of her. But perhaps she wants to be depicted as a blush-rose?”
“Don’t let’s talk about her. I don’t want to remember any other woman when you are here.... No, that arm isn’t quite right.” His hand was subtly caressing as he bent it into the position required, and it sent a little physical thrill through her. But when she met his eyes, he saw only a mocking light in them. All the same, he was quick to detect a slight difference in her attitude towards him. After the episode of the drive home from Hampstead he had been at first furiously angry, but after a while her very elusiveness had intrigued him to fresh efforts. His experience with women had been that they were always rather shy when it came to the last moves in the game; and Claudia was certainly a prize in the feminine market.
“You don’t know the happiness it gives me to work on your portrait.... Just look a little more to the left—a trifle more—yes, that’s right.... You must give me the chance of finishing it. I shall be restless and unhappy until it is done.... Don’t make me more unhappy than I am already,” he concluded softly.
The studio was very warm—too warm, and the scent still lingered in the air. It was an unpretentious apartment, but it had not that bare, unclothed look which distinguished some artists’ studios. Frank declared that he worked better in a coloursome atmosphere, and he had picked up some beautiful Oriental hangings, subdued but rich, which draped the walls with dull gold and reds. The few pieces of furniture were good. Frank had bought them very cheaply from a former tenant.
“I don’t see why you should be unhappy,” answered Claudia languidly, watching him mix some colours on his palette. “Young and successful, that ought to be enough to make a man happy.”
“Unsuccessful in the one thing that he really wants,” replied the man at the easel, with a quick glance at her.
Claudia knew it was injudicious to continue in this strain, but something within her, reckless and craving for excitement, urged her on.
“We never get the things we really want. That would be Paradise.... And what do you want so particularly?”
“What I am afraid there is no chance of gaining,” he replied softly; “the heart of the dearest, most beautiful woman in the world.”
“You want—a good deal.”
“Nothing less would content me.”
The studio was on the roof of a building in Victoria Street and was reached by a long flight of stairs from his living apartments below. Somewhere down there a middle-aged, flat-footed woman acted as his servant, but she never came into the studio unless Frank rang for her. The sounds of the traffic made a dull, heavy grumbling below, but no other noise intruded upon them.
He looked at his sitter and he found her very desirable and very beautiful, especially to-day, with that touch of languor, that air of laisser faire, as of one who lays down the oars and deliberately lets the boat drift with the current. Was it only a momentary mood? Did he dare to say more?
She looked at the man, and she found him young and very much alive, fully aware and appreciative of her femininity.
Unconsciously she sighed.
In an instant he had thrown down the brushes and was at her side, a light in his eyes, a look on his face that made her shrink back a little and catch at the arms of the chair.
“Claudia!”
She raised her eyebrows interrogatively.
He had dropped on his knees beside her chair—he could do such things gracefully—and his lips were pressed on the back of her hand, on her wrist, on her soft forearm.
“Don’t, Frank, I——”
“Claudia, I worship you” he said recklessly. “You must know it. Don’t keep me at arm’s length any longer. You are driving me mad by your coldness. I can’t paint, I can’t sleep.... I can only think of you as you might be if you would let yourself love me.”
They had both risen to their feet, and he slipped his arm persuasively round her shoulders. His nearness seemed to deprive her of any will or any desire to repulse him. Love is sweet, and his evident sincerity and passion seemed to soothe some aching wound within her. Was not this what she needed to make her life tolerable? Every woman is entitled to love, and her marriage had been a mistake. Perhaps, if she had known all she knew now and she had met Frank earlier....
“Claudia, my dearest, say something to me.”
He drew her unresistingly to him, and the lids drooped over her eyes as she felt the warmth of his breath on her face and then the pressure of his lips.
There was none of the fierce masculinity and violence of Gilbert’s early love-making. Frank Hamilton was too much of an artist for that, and it was not the first time he had made love to a fastidious, sensitive woman. He gave her just the right impression, just the assurance she needed at that moment of tender affection and almost reverent passion. Had he been more virile in his love-making, memory would have awakened, and with her later knowledge she would have repulsed him. She would have said to herself, “This is passion, only passion, and I know what a little it means.” Suspicion would have plucked at her sleeve. But Frank struck the right note, partly by instinct, partly by design.
When at last she made a faint resistance to the pressure of his arms, he slowly let her go, only to catch her hands and cover them again with kisses. She looked down at the waves of his dark hair, worn a little longer than is usual, but not noticeably “artistic,” and she felt sure that she cared for him. He had given a grateful warmth to her heart. A glow of tenderness rose in her for him.
“I think you are foolish to care so much for me,” she said softly.
He drew her hands up till they rested on his shoulders, and he smiled with happy contradiction into her face. He was very good-looking in his triumph, and she could not help rejoicing in his comeliness. The Greeks worshipped beauty, and were they so wrong? Youth and good looks ought to be part of love. Surely it is the ideal.
“Now you look as I knew you could look,” he said half dreamily; “your eyes are soft and velvety like the petals of the pansy. I must kiss them once again ... dear eyes ... beautiful eyes ... and I’ve looked into them such a long time, hoping to see them soften and glow as they do now. Claudia, if you knew how much I love you.”
“I wonder why,” she laughed, with the harmless coquetry of the woman who knows herself loved, “when there are such a number of women in the world.”
“There isn’t any woman comparable to you. I don’t realize now that another woman exists on the face of the earth. I feel as if you and I were standing on a desert island. There are many people on the other islands, of course, but not on ours.” He really meant it at the moment.
She pretended to laugh at his extravagance, but all the time she felt that this was the way a man should love a woman. Had she not felt like that when she had been in love with Gilbert? The world had consisted of Gilbert—and people. Of course, Frank loved her more than she did him, but that somehow evened up things a little. She had loved Gilbert more than he had loved her.
he murmured.
“Then I saw the tombstones in the dark and their message,” she interrupted, the scene in the motor recurring to her.
“You saw——?”
“Nothing ... only don’t quote poetry; it makes everything seem so unreal.”
“Unreal?” He caught her to him passionately. “Is this unreal? Don’t you believe in my love?”
She let her head droop on his shoulder. “Men have such large hearts—or such small ones. Don’t look so hurt, dear.... It’s true. Men love and unlove so much more easily than women.” But her lips smiled and took the sting out of her words. The lips said, “I want to believe,” while the worldly, cynical words flowed over them. “What is fire to-day, Frank, is ashes to-morrow.”
“You don’t believe that love can last?”
His eyes shone, and he made a most convincing lover. His voice had the right ring. She could feel the pulsating warmth of his hand through the thin ninon of her sleeve. “Claudia, you mean everything to me—everything. I hardly dared to hope, and yet I had to, just as a ship-wrecked sailor has to dream of land or he would die. I have worked hard because I wanted to be worthy of your praise, of your confidence. You have inspired everything I have done. All the time I have been striving to please you.”
It was balm to her, it was food for her heart’s hunger. He had worked hard at his profession but to please her, to lay his success as an offering at her feet—art, not for art’s sake, but for love’s. That was the right romantic spirit, a little exalté, a little extravagant; but then, he was an artist, and had not innumerable artists owed their lives’ inspiration to women? She was glad she had been able to help him, to introduce him into a circle that had started the ball of success a-rolling for him. She had been able to give and he had appreciated the giving, for love always seeks self-immolation, and Claudia had nothing of the vampire in her composition. Love! Did she love him? Was it not inevitable after her first experience that she should be a little uncertain of her own feelings?
“I hoped, I prayed you would turn to me one day.... He doesn’t appreciate you. He takes your beauty and your sweetness as his right. Everyone sees it.”
She was a little startled. So she and Gilbert’s marital relations were being discussed just like other couples’ in their set. Gilbert’s coldness and neglect were being talked about over the teacups of Mayfair. Her pride revolted against it, and her half-formed determination to console herself like the other women she knew hardened. Something that had been pricking her a little ceased to do so. She would take the sweets offered her. After all, life soon ended—in a tombstone. An epigram she had heard a few days previously recurred to her mind: “Let every woman see to it that she has a present, so that the future may not find her unprovided with a past.” Who cared about either her morals or her ethics? She had only herself to reckon with. Herself! Well, she would consider that another time.
“We won’t discuss him.... Never. You understand, Frank?”
He had read the sudden tumult of her thoughts.
“You are still in love with him?” he said jealously. “Of course, I know a woman like you must have married for love. Tell me—you must answer me this one question, then I will respect your wishes.... Are you?”
She did not hesitate, but she made a deliberate pause, as though she were finally settling the question with her own heart.
“No, I no longer love him, because the man I loved does not exist.... Now go on with the picture. The light will soon go, and I want to see it finished. Please.”
Reluctantly he went back to the easel and took up his palette. She stood on the platform, watching him. He caught her look and squared his shoulders.
“This is going to be my best picture,” he said enthusiastically. “Love and beauty! Why, the very worst artist would be inspired. I know I can do big things if you encourage me.” He stopped, and then came back to where she stood. “Claudia, you never acknowledged you loved me. Say you do, dearest?”
His eyes were very beseeching and like a child’s, a little distressed at the doubt that had flung its shadows across his happiness.
“Claudia, you do love me?”
“I—I think I do, Frank. No, you must be content with that at present.” She waved him back.
“But some day you will love me as I love you.” His eyes were steady now, and the accent of the voice was that of the conquering male.
She laughed a little uncertainly and a faint flush rose to her cheeks.
“Shall I? Oh, what conceited creatures men are! And—I don’t know how much you love me. A woman never knows. Now go on with the portrait.”
As she went down in the lift some time later it stopped at the second floor, and to her surprise the gate admitted Colin Paton.
“You!” he exclaimed pleasantly. “And what are you doing in Victoria Street?”
For a moment she had an unpleasant feeling of having been caught doing something clandestine, and her reply was a little embarrassed. She never remembered to have felt quite so before.
“Didn’t you know that Mr. Hamilton’s studio is up at the top? The portrait, you know.”
She was very annoyed with herself for the feeling, and went on quickly:
“It was you who begged me to continue the sittings. So I have been trying to please you. But it’s very tiresome.”
She wondered what made her tack on the last sentence even as she uttered it. Was it because she feared that his keen eyes would note her embarrassment? Why did she have to be a hypocrite? She was glad when the lift stopped and the bright electric light ceased to shine on her face. The street was grey and more kindly.
“Beauty must be penalized some way or another,” he rejoined smilingly. “Some women would be only too glad to put up with the boredom should a well-known portrait-painter beg them to sit.”
She arranged her veil and looked round for her motor.
“You don’t know his work, do you?”
The fresh air of the street was refreshing after the enervating atmosphere of the studio.
“I saw some of his pictures the other day at a show. It’s clever work.”
“Not more than that?” Her tone implied that his praise was too tepid.
“Does it quite satisfy you?”
She was feeling vaguely irritated at the encounter. Why did he make her feel uncomfortable, and why did he belittle Frank’s work? He was usually generous in his praise. Had he any suspicion with regard to their friendship? She answered untruthfully, with a touch of defiance:
“Yes, I think it quite satisfies me.”
“Well, you’re a good judge. Perhaps I’ve lost my taste for pictures in the Argentine. Big spaces are apt to make you rather intolerant of some so-called ‘artistic’ achievements. Genius always stands out, but talent somehow gets awfully dwarfed. Don’t you know what I mean?”
“Well, we’re not in the Argentine. We’re in Victoria Street.” No, she would not admit that Frank had only talent.
He laughed and dropped the subject. “I know it well by the roar of the buses. I met a fellow out there who was desperately homesick, and he confided to me that he’d give anything to see the scavengers washing down the street as he drove home from the club, and see the wet pavement shining under the street lamps. How’s Gilbert to-day?”
“He has gone to his chambers.”
“What? Why, he was in bed yesterday.”
“I know.” She shrugged her shoulders under their luxurious furs. “But the only thing that counts with Gilbert is his work, you know. He refuses to stop in bed any longer.” She looked him straight in the face and her eyes were bright and hard. “Tell me something. Did you always know that work is the only real thing in Gilbert’s life? But, of course, you knew. You see most things in your quiet, undemonstrative way.”
They were standing beside the car. The door was open for her to step into it.
For a moment he was nonplussed. What answer could he make to such a question? But while he was groping for some words, she held out her hand with a little amused, cynical laugh.
“Yes. I see you did know. You need not tell a lie. I think you might have warned me. Good-bye.”
She left him standing on the pavement, his grey eyes troubled and anxious.
She leaned back and tried to think of Frank and the difference his love was going to make in her life. She tried to give herself up again to the pleasant feeling of being cared for, of being appreciated. She tried to recapture the thrill his caresses had given her; but she could not. She could only see the troubled grey eyes of Colin Paton.
“He’s spoilt my afternoon,” she said angrily to herself as the car sped homewards. “He’s spoilt my afternoon. And he is only a dreamer. He has no right to judge me.”
But Colin Paton was not the judge.
CHAPTER IX
“MELTON GREEN”
“She’s so keen on your coming,” urged Jack. “She’s taken a tremendous fancy to you. And, you know, she’s such a kid. She’s no end proud of her turn. You must come and see her.”
“You are aware that my august husband will be very displeased should he hear of it,” returned Claudia dryly.
“Oh! blow Gilbert and his airs! I can’t think how you came to marry such a sack of sawdust. I met him yesterday and he was as frigid as a frozen leg of mutton.... What’s it got to do with him whom I marry?”
A good constitution will stand a great deal, and, contrary to expectations, Gilbert had not had to return ignominiously to bed after his rash defiance of the doctor’s orders. But he had never recovered, and Claudia saw that he was not half the man he had been. But he would not admit that he felt ill, and his secret feelings only showed themselves in great irritability and an almost total ignoring of her presence.
“If people minded their own business,” said Claudia lightly, “this world would be a dull place! It’s family friction that keeps us all alive!”
“Rot! But Gilbert is too priggish for words. I always did hate the Curreys, anyway, and Gilbert was ever a cold-blooded fish.” He cast a curious glance at his sister, which she ignored. Sometimes in a dull, unimaginative way he wondered how far emotion now played its part in her marriage. But he never asked questions, for he was a little afraid of Claudia. “I say, come along to-night. It’s Saturday, and that’s a good night. You’ve never seen anything like the Empire at Melton Green on a Saturday, I bet.”
“I half promised to make a four at the club,” said Claudia indifferently, stroking Billie’s ears. “But Melton Green sounds amusing.”
Gilbert had gone down for the week-end to his parents, always a tiresome function to her, and this time he had not urged her to accompany him.
“That’s nothing. I insist on your coming. We’ll dash back to the West End between the shows and get something to eat. Do, Claud, old girl; I want you to see how popular she is. Why, the gallery boys fairly eat her.”
“How much is the gallery?”
“Oh! threepence admission.” Jack grinned. “They are a crew, too. They’ll amuse you. You look a bit down in the mouth. Fay’ll cheer you up. You can’t be blue with her.”
“I’m not down in the mouth,” contradicted his sister untruthfully. “One can’t always be howling with laughter. Life isn’t as funny as all that.”
“Oh! I don’t know. That’s the worst of you brainy people. You take life too seriously. What on earth is the good of rootling about and trying to find a deep meaning in everything? There isn’t any meaning in life. You’re just put here to enjoy yourself. A cabbage doesn’t think. Why should we?”
“Yes, I know your theory of life, or rather, your lack of one.” Frank had been insinuating the same philosophy at their various meetings. She was aware that the insinuating process had an ulterior motive, for she was unable to deceive herself or walk blindly into the arms he held out to her. But so far she had kept him off very delicate ground. She knew she could not do so much longer, and she wondered at herself that she did not capitulate. For more and more her thoughts dwelt on those pleasures of which she had been deprived. The spring air tantalized her and made the blood run hotter in her veins. Nature craved its proper food; youth seconded its demands.
“Chuck this analytical business and take life lightly,” urged her brother. “I take life lightly and so does Fay. She’s a perfect skylark. Doesn’t look a day ahead or a day backwards.”
“And you counsel me to do likewise—to emulate her mode of living?”
He was lounging in the library of her flat, content with himself and all the world. He had borne a lot of “chipping” on his marriage, which was now dying down. But in spite of his lethargic egotism, he caught a look now in Claudia’s eyes that made his dull brain work a little. What had some woman been saying about Claudia and some painter chap? He tried to recall the gossip, but it had been late at night and his recollection was vague.
“In moderation, old girl,” he counselled warily. “Of course there are some things you can’t do. But flutter a bit if you like.”
“What sort of things can’t I do?” asked Claudia, with abrupt directness.
“Oh, don’t peg me down! Well, things I can do, you can’t. A girl’s different from a man—at least, you are.”
“The old shibboleth!” she jeered. “We’re not different, my dear brother. We’re exactly the same, only—only I suppose we’re more fastidious.”
He was a little alarmed. In the old days Claudia had always taken what he called “a high moral tone” in discussing his little peccadilloes. Vaguely he felt that this change in her was not right.
“Is Fay conservative in her opinions on this subject?” went on Claudia, with a touch of cruelty. “Does she think there are things she can do and you can’t?”
He winced and uncrossed his legs. “She’s different from you,” he said decidedly. “You’re sort of—well, superior. I’d hate to think——” He stopped and tweaked Billie’s ear.
“Well, go on. What would you hate?”
Billie looked at him sadly as he twisted his lips about. “Well, er—oh! you know the things I wouldn’t like you to do. For some women it’s all right, not for you.... You see, well, with some women it doesn’t seem to matter, it’s natural for them to do a bit of straying, but it’s not natural for you, and”—with unexpected acuteness—“it would make you miserable. You’d hate the game, because you’d see through the whole bally business, and you’d criticize yourself and him.”
“You’re talking of a mere flirtation,” returned Claudia quickly. “A liaison between a man and a woman may be something more than that. What, after all, is a gold band on the finger and a mumbling clergyman?”
“Course, if you put it that way, I can’t answer you. But I don’t say it’s different, only—well, they nearly all are flirtations of varying degrees of warmth. You don’t mean much to her, and she doesn’t mean much to you, but you pretend all the time. Of course”—vaguely—“there are grandes passions, like Shakespeare’s people, but they don’t grow on every gooseberry-bush. And I ought to know, you know.” He made the last remark quite simply, just as he might have complimented himself on his taste in ties.
“You haven’t looked for love,” she said sharply. “Love may come at any moment in your life, and I think you deny it—at your own risk.”
“Besides, Gilbert would make a hell of a row,” observed her brother. “A hell of a row.”
“I wasn’t talking of myself. We were merely arguing in—in a general way.”
He looked at her in silence, and she turned away, biting her lip. Then she rose with a little dry laugh. The one man of all those she knew whose tolerance she would have taken for granted had failed to back her up. Why should she be different from other neglected wives? Why should she go through life hungry and miserable? Suddenly she turned in surprise at Jack’s next remark.
“Why doesn’t Colin Paton get married? He’s a nice chap. Everyone speaks well of him.”
“Colin? Oh! I don’t think he cares for women that way.”
Jack gave a lazy chuckle. “All men care for women that way—when they can get ’em. Why didn’t you marry him Claud? Why did you give him the go-by?”
“The go-by?” she said incredulously. “Why, he never wanted to marry me. We were only—friends, the best of friends.”
“I read somewhere in something that friendship is a good foundation for marriage. What was the beastly quotation? ‘Love is friendship set on fire.’ It impressed me, because Fay and I were awful good chums for a long time and we never—never till we were married.”
He said it in a shamefaced way, like a schoolboy convicted of saying his prayers. His face had gone a curious pink, and he avoided meeting Claudia’s eyes.
But she was not thinking of his confession, she was thinking of Colin Paton. Why had he not married? Was her easy explanation the right one? Why, no, he had never wanted to marry her.
“You don’t imagine Colin Paton wanted to marry me, do you?” she asked.
“Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised if you and he had fixed it up. You used to go about a lot together, and you’re not a woman a man would feel platonically about. I thought he went away so hurriedly because of your engagement. But, of course, you know him much better than I.”
She found the thought curiously interesting and a little exciting, even while she tried to dismiss it. He had never said a word that could be construed into love-making. Surely there would have been some word or look that would have betrayed him if it were as Jack suggested.
Jack looked at his watch. “By Jove, we must go if we’re going. Come along, old girl, she’s on in the first house at eight, and it’s a long drive down there. It’s the wilds of beyond, over the river. Go and put on something quiet and oldish. There’s a good deal of dust knocking about behind the scenes.”
The drive was, as he had said, a long one, through narrow streets and past huge lumbering tramcars that were new to Claudia. The streets during the latter part of the journey were lined with roadside stalls illuminated by flaring naptha lamps that cast weird shadows over faces that reminded her of those in Dickens’ novels. There were barrows with all kinds of china, stalls brilliantly red with joints of meat, others piled high with greenstuff and with trays of toffee and sweets. It seemed to Claudia that she had never heard so many hoarse, raucous voices before, punctuated every now and then by the pipe of some child trying to make itself heard among the tumult. Between the activities of the stalls they passed rows of grey, grimy little houses, timber-yards and factories, brightly-lit public houses, and always the trams, still more brilliant, gliding along full of passengers, like great ships in full sail.
She and Jack did not talk intimately any more. She listened to his account of a big golfing competition. Only once did he revert to their previous conversation. It came up apropos of Jack saying that Colin Paton had been in up to the last round.
“He plays such a good, steady game. Upon my word, I like to watch him. I say, Claudia, if it were he, instead of this painter chap, I wouldn’t mind. But, then, he’s Gilbert’s friend, isn’t he?”
Claudia was spared any reply by the stoppage of their car outside a brightly-lit theatre with placards galore. She noticed at once several of The Girlie Girl in various costumes and various smiles. It was not one of the new suburban halls, but there was plenty of light on the frontage.
“Got to find the stage-door,” said Jack. “Here, perhaps this is it, up this alley.”
The alley was dark and very dirty and Claudia held up her skirts fastidiously. A boy, with a jug in his hand, came running down while they were half-way, and a man with a clay pipe came out of a grimy, narrow door at the end.
It was the stage-door. Claudia almost shrank back when she saw the narrow passage way with its blackened walls and filthy staircase, which she found she was expected to descend. The atmosphere was indescribable, frowsy, hot and stale. The strains of the orchestra reached them intermittently as the doors below were opened and shut.
“You’ll find her down there,” called out the door-keeper encouragingly. “She ain’t on yet.”
The boy had returned with the beer-jug, and the beer was being slopped on the stairs as he shoved his way past them. A curious roaring sound was in progress now, and it took Claudia a little time to realize that it was applause from the front of the house.
She followed Jack down the stairs, and she saw that the dirtiness of his surroundings did not embarrass him. Evidently he was used to them. The steps were of stone and the railings were iron, and it seemed to Claudia like some curious sort of dirty prison, rather than a hall of gaiety.
They arrived at the bottom of the stairs, and looking up from the stone steps on which she was afraid her feet might slip, she got rather a shock. Standing talking excitedly were three acrobats with the minimum of clothing, the perspiration pouring down over their make-up. It was certainly Nature in the raw, and hardly a pleasant sight at close quarters. The muscles were standing out on their arms and chests, and for the first time Claudia realized the work involved in such performances, which she usually sat through indifferently. One of them hailed Jack enthusiastically.
“Hallo! old man! Fay was asking if we’d seen you.” They cast a curious but not very interested glance at Claudia. “Come into our room and have a drink later on.”
Jack nodded, and Claudia followed him along another few yards of the passage. It struck her that most of the dirt had been made by human fingers and bodies, for above the height of five feet or so the walls were comparatively clean. They passed an open door where a stout woman in chemise and petticoat was making-up in a public manner before a looking-glass, and then she found herself in Fay’s dressing-room.
It was a small slip of a room, with flaring gas-jets protected by wire shades and two washing-basins inset in the table-shelf which went across one side of it. The heat in the room took Claudia’s breath away; it was even worse than the passages. The light was almost cruelly bright. There were three huge dress-baskets, which almost filled the apartment, and a lumpy, perspiring and heavily-breathing dresser was sitting on one of them, sewing on something spangled.
A man was just finishing speaking in a heavy, oily voice as Fay’s husband pushed open the door, and Claudia was in time to hear Fay say, in accents of excitement and pleasure: “Jim, you’re a perfect duck. I love diamonds and rubies. Come here and let me give you another kiss for it.”
So it happened that Claudia’s second view of Fay was one with her arms flung round something masculine, standing on the tips of her toes to do so. Two brawny arms were returning her hug. She felt Jack stiffen a little as Fay broke loose with a laugh.
“It’s almost like old times. Oh! but I mustn’t remember them now. I promised.... Here he is. Jack, come in. I want to introduce you to Jim Clerry—my husband.”
There was not the faintest touch of confusion in Fay’s manner or face, any more than with a child who has been caught bestowing embraces. She was evidently very pleased over something. She was radiant with good humour.
The man, who thrust out his hand and said, “Glad to know you sir,” was, in spite of his name, an obvious Jew, with heavy, coarse features and almost negroid lips. The face was only redeemed by the brightness of the dark eyes. To Claudia’s artistic sense it was almost revolting that any pretty woman should kiss him, especially anything so dainty as Fay. She wondered, indeed, that any woman could wish to do so.
In an artificial way, for she was heavily made-up, Fay was looking her prettiest. Her great blue eyes sparkled under the bunch of pale blue ostrich feathers on her head which, with some kind of a gold-lace cap, constituted her head-dress.
“Now, boys, I want you to be friends,” called out Fay, picking up a hare’s foot and giving another rub to her red cheeks. “I say, what’s the time? Have the performing dogs finished? Oh! Jack, why didn’t you tell me?” She rushed over impetuously to the doorway and pulled Claudia in. “My dear, this is nice of you. I am glad to see you. Sit on this basket. But I wish you hadn’t come to this hall. I generally do much more classy halls than this, but I have to do this on an old contract. I’m working ’em all off now. I wish I were doing ‘The Monkey and the Moth’ to-night. Have you heard it? No? Oh! it’s a ripping song. Perhaps I’ll do it at the second house. Oh! I’m forgetting my manners—never shall be a real lady—Mr. Clerry, Mrs. Currey, my sister-in-law. Isn’t she lovely?”
A knotted, hairy and none too clean hand came towards her and shook hers like a pump-handle.
“Good looks run in the family, I should say,” with what, to Claudia, was an offensive chuckle. “Well, I’ll ’op it, Fay. No room for an old mash now. Congrats on your marriage. I daresay you were wise to chuck me. Anyway, I bear no grudge. So long. Ta-ta, everyone.”
“Jim, don’t be a fool!” cried Fay, standing on one foot like a stork while the dresser laced some ribbons round her leg. “You must wait and see my turn.”
“Got to see a man at the Kilburn Empire. Only came along to give you that toy. Ta-ta. Be good, and you’ll be happy.”
With a comprehensive nod he went out, with a curious swaggering, swaying movement of the shoulders and hips.
“Come and see us at the flat,” shouted Fay, standing on the other leg. Then to Claudia: “He’s the best clog dancer on the Moss and Stoll tour. He’s out this week because of the fire last week.”
A jeweller’s morocco case lay at her elbow, and Jack looked at it suspiciously.
“What’s that, Fay?”
She opened it with great glee. “The duckiest pendant you ever saw.” It was a showy but rather expensive affair. “It’s jolly nice of Jim under the circs. I’ll wear it to-night for luck.”
Jack took the case away from her. “Fay, you can’t accept this. You’re my wife now. Don’t you see it isn’t—isn’t the thing. I’ll give you all the pendants you want.”
The blue eyes opened at first in surprise and then grew dark and stormy. Her mouth took a curve that spoilt its prettiness.
“Give it back to me at once or you and me’ll have a row. Why, they’re real diamonds and rubies. He told me he paid twenty-five quid for it wholesale. Think you’re going to chuck it in the dust-bin?” Her voice had grown a little shrill. Claudia wished she were anywhere rather than in the same room, but the dresser looked on with frank interest, “a bit of a row” evidently enlivening her profession for her.
“I shan’t chuck it in the dust-bin,” said Jack a little sulkily. “You’ve got to send it back to him. She must, mustn’t she, Claudia?”
“Not much, my dear. And have him give it to some other girl? After all, I’ve a right to it. We were great pals. I hear he’s taken up with Molly Billington, and I won’t see it hung round her fat neck. She’s a beast! Why shouldn’t he give me a wedding-present?”
She made a sudden snatch that reminded Claudia of a velvet-pawed cat, and regained possession of it. With a laugh of triumph she put it round her neck.
“I’ll wear it to-night for luck.” Her good temper had come back. She danced up to her husband, who was standing moodily regarding the mess of make-up materials spread on a towel, and held up her lips to him.
“Don’t be a loony, Jackie boy. It’s all over and done with if you’re feeling jealous. I’m good now. I won’t take anything more from him. Kiss me.” Yelps and howls suddenly assailed their ears. “There! the dogs have finished. Kiss me like a good boy and I’ll forgive you.” She looked up into his face with a delicious moue and wink. “I never said any of your girls were not to give you presents, though I’d fire them out of the flat quick enough. I say ‘Live and let live.’ Come on.”
The tempting mouth and laughing eyes were too much for Jack, and he did as she requested, though with a rueful look at Claudia that she thought it better to pretend not to see.
“Hope my voice is all right to-night. I ate a lot of bloater-paste for tea, and that dries up the voice. Don’t you find that? Only it’s a weakness of mine. Mar used to say I was weaned on bloater-paste.” She looked in the glass anxiously. “Perkins, a wee drop of stout. La—la—la—la!” She took the scale with terrific force in the small space. “Come in.” This in answer to a knock at the door. The fat woman whom they had seen next door came hurtling in. Her toilette was a little more advanced, but not much.
“I say, dearie, have you heard about Gertie Lockhart? She’s got the rheumatic fever, and they say she won’t be able to work for months. We’re getting up a little sub. for her. Give me a few bob, my dear.”
“I should think so,” said Fay emphatically. “Perkins, find my purse. I heard she was pretty bad. Rotten luck! Here’s half a quid with my love. Oh! Miss Belle de Laney—Mrs. Currey. You’ve met my husband, haven’t you?”
“Charmed to meet you, I’m sure. Fay, where did you get them feathers? I’ve been looking out for some like that for weeks. I’ve got such a cold I can hardly speak. Old Moser’s a bit screwed to-night, ain’t he? Thanks muchly, old girl. My! I wish I could keep my fat down like you. Once upon a time—yes, it sounds like a fairy-tale, don’t it?—I had legs like hers. Couldn’t fill my stockings out properly. Now it’s out-sizes, and the holes I wear in ’em!” She nodded confidentially to Claudia. “Do you know, I used to play Columbine once; then I got to principal boy, and now—well, look at me!”