IX
“My word,” said Mrs. Rumbold, getting up from her knees and taking a pin out of her mouth. “I never see anything like it before. It’s my opinion that you could ’old your own in that frock with any of the best, my dear. It’s so quiet—yet so compelling. The best of taste. If I see you coming down the steps of the Ritz, I should nudge the person I was with and say, ‘Duke’s daughter. French mother probably.’”
“Thank you,” said Lola. And that was exactly how she felt. Carried forward on the current of her impatience, she didn’t stop to ask herself what was the use of going to the Savoy, of all places, alone,—the danger, the absurdity. “I wonder if you’ll be so kind as to fold up my day dress, put it in the box and string it up. You’re sure you’ll be up as late as half-past eleven? If so, it won’t take me a moment to change and I’ll leave the evening dress here.”
“Oh, that’ll be all right,” said Mrs. Rumbold. “I shall be up, my dear. The old man’s going to a dinner and will come staggering back later than that. He’ll be a regular Mason to-night, bless him.” And she stood back, looked Lola all over with the greatest admiration and a certain amount of personal pride. She was a good dressmaker, no doubt about it. An awful lot of stuff had had to be taken out of that frock. It must have been made for a woman with the shoulders of a rowing man. It wasn’t for her to ask what the little game was, to inquire why a lady’s maid was going out on the sly, looking like her mistress. She had her living to make and dressmaking was a precarious livelihood in these times. “Have a good evening, my dear,” she said; “enjoy yourself. Only live once, yer know.” And added inwardly, “And I’ll lay you’ll manage to do yourself pretty well,—a lot better than most, with that face and figure and the style and all. Lord, but how you’ve come on since I see yer last. All the zwar-zwar of the reg’ler thing, sweep-me-bob.”
The taxi was still waiting at the door, ticking up sixpences, but in Lola’s pocket was a little purse bulging with her savings. She turned at the door. “Mrs. Rumbold,” she said, and it might have been Lady Feo who was speaking, “you certainly are one in a million.”
There was a sudden cry of despair.
“Lord ’a’ mercy, what’s the trouble?”
Lola had become herself again, a tragic, large-eyed self. “I can’t go like this,” she said. “I have no evening cloak.” The whole framework of her adventure flapped like the sides of a tent in a high wind.
“My dear!” cried Mrs. Rumbold. “Well, there’s a nice lookout. What in the world’s to be done?”
Fallaray.—The Savoy——
“Wait a second. I’ve got an idea.” The woman with tousled hair made a dart at a curtain which was stretched across one of the corners of her workroom. She emerged immediately with something thin and black which gleamed here and there with silver. “Put that on,” she said. “I’ve just made it for Mrs. Wimpole in Inverness Terrace. She won’t be calling for it until to-morrer. If you’ll promise to bring it back safe——”
All Lola’s confidence returned and a smile of triumph came into her face. “That will do nicely,” she said, and placed herself to receive the borrowed garment. A quick glance in the mirror showed her that if it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that she would have chosen, it passed.
“You’re a brick, Mrs. Rumbold, a perfect brick. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.” And she bent forward and touched the withered cheek with her lips. One of these days she would do something for this hard-working woman whose eldest boy sat legless in the back parlor,—something which would relieve the great and persistent strain which followed her from one plucky day to another.
And then, pausing for a moment on the top of the steps in order to make sure that there was no one in the street who could recognize her—Queen’s Road was only just round the corner—Lola ran down and put her hand on the door of the taxi cab.
“The Savoy,” she said.