"Well, I think he looks terrible. Why, he wears his teeth outside."
Then Jenny, meeting Irene and her Danby in Leicester Square, beheld her friend in the childish costume.
"Oh, sight!" she called out.
"You are rude," said Irene.
"You"re a very rude little girl," said Danby; "but will you come and have a drink with us?"
"No, thanks," said Jenny, and pa.s.sed on coldly. That evening she attacked Irene in the dressing-room.
"To let a man make such a shocking sight of you!"
"He likes to see me in short skirts."
"Whatever for? And those boots!"
"He wants me to marry him," declared Irene.
"Marry you? That"s only a rumor, young Irene. I"ve properly rumbled your Danby. Marry you! I don"t think."
"He is when he comes back from Paris, and he said you were a very bad example for me."
"Crushed!" said Jenny in mock humility. Then she went on, "Yes, you and your Parises. Any old way, you can tell Tin Ribs from me I should be ashamed to make a girl I was fond of look such a terrible sight."
"His brother said he"d like to be introduced to you."
"Yes; I daresay. Tin Ribs the Second, I suppose. No, thanks, not this little girl."
London deepened into summer, and the golden people coming out of Covent Garden seemed scattered with star dust from the prodigal June stars, while the high moon made of Jenny a moonbeam as, in white pique, she sat in the front of the green omnibus going home.
These were happy days at Covent Garden, and when the season ended Jenny was sorry. She did not enjoy Yarmouth with its swarming sands and goat-carriages and dust and fleas and switchback flung down on the barren coast like a monstrous skeleton. She was glad to come back to London in the effulgence of a fine September; glad to rehea.r.s.e again for the autumn opera season, and pleased, when that was over, to return to Drury Lane for the Christmas pantomime.
After her second spring season of opera was over she and Irene discussed the future. Danby had retired to Paris on his business. His rings sparkled unseen in the safe of a Camden Town p.a.w.nbroker, although the whisky and soda which they served to buy had long ceased to sparkle for Mrs. Dale. Irene said she was tired of being in three months and out three months.
"I think we ought to go to the Orient, Jenny."
"I don"t care where we go," said Jenny.
"Well, let"s."
"All right. I"ll meet you Camden Town station to-morrow. Don"t you be late."
"No fear."
"Oh, no, Mrs. Punctual, you"re never late!" scoffed Jenny.
"Well, I won"t be to-morrow."
On the following morning Jenny dressed herself up to impress the ballet-master of the Orient, and arrived in good time at Camden Town station. Irene was nowhere in sight. Jenny waited half an hour. People began to stare at the sprays of lilac in her large round hat. Really, they were looking at the blue facets of her eyes and her delicate, frowning eyebrows. But Jenny, feeling herself a-blush, thought it was the lilac, thought her placket was undone, thought there was a hole in her stocking, became thoroughly hot and self-conscious.
She waited another blushful quarter of an hour. Then, thinking that Irene must surely have mistaken the meeting-place, she called at the shop in Kentish Town where her father worked and asked him if he"d seen Irene.
"Irene Dale?" said Charlie.
"Yes, you know."
"Haven"t you seen her?"
"No."
"Why, she was in here asking for you. She"s been waiting outside Kentish Town Station."
"That"s Mrs. Brains all over. Ta-ta!"
Jenny dashed off to Kentish Town, where she caught Irene on the verge of departure. Most of the way to the Orient they argued which was right.
When they reached the famous theater of varieties, Irene said she was afraid to go in.
"Who cares?" said Jenny. "If they don"t want us, they won"t eat us, any way."
Monsieur Corontin, the Maitre de Ballet, interviewed them in his little room that was hidden away at the end of one of the innumerable pa.s.sages.
He looked at Jenny curiously.
"Dance, please, miss."
Jenny danced as well as she could in the diminutive room.
"Now, please, miss," he said to Irene, who also danced.
"You are engaged," said Mr. Corontin.
"Both?" asked Jenny.
"Both of you."
They lost themselves several times in the course of their descent.
"What an unnatural place," said Jenny. "Gee! How many more stairs? I suppose we"re ballet girls now."
At home that evening Charlie remonstrated with his daughter for intruding upon him at Kentish Town.
"Don"t come asking me for your flash friends," he said. "Why, the men wondered who you were."
"Didn"t they know I was your daughter?"
"I tried to pretend you wasn"t, but one of "em heard you calling me dad."