“Oh, let’s!” agreed Audrey, with rapture. “And more sponge-cake, too! You do look lovely like that!”
“Do I?”
Jane Foley had her profuse hair tightly bound round her head and powdered grey. It was very advisable for her to be disguised, and her bright hair was usually the chief symptom of her in those disturbances which so harassed the police. She now had the appearance of a neat old lady kept miraculously young by a pure and cheerful nature. Audrey, with a plain blue frock and hat which had cost more than Jane Foley would spend on clothes in twelve months, had a face dazzling by its ingenuous excitement and expectation. Her little nose was extraordinarily pert; her forehead superb; and all her gestures had the same vivacious charm as was in her eyes. The white-aproned, streamered girl who took the order for lemonade and sponge-cakes to a covered bar ornamented by advertisements of whisky, determined to adopt a composite of the styles of both the customers on her next ceremonious Sunday. And a large proportion of the other sippers and nibblers and of the endless promenading crowds regarded the pair with pleasure and curiosity, never suspecting that one of them was the most dangerous woman in England.
The new refreshments, which had been delayed by reason of an altercation between the waitress and three extreme youths at a neighbouring table, at last arrived, and were plopped smartly down between Audrey and Miss Foley. Having received half a sovereign from Audrey, the girl returned to the bar for change. “None o’ your sauce!” she threw out, as she passed the youths, who had apparently discovered new arguments in support of their case. Audrey was fired by the vigorous independence of the girl against three males.
“I don’t care if we are caught!” she murmured low, looking for the future through the pellucid tumbler. She added, however: “But if we are, I shall pay my own fine. You know I promised that to Miss Ingate.”
“That’s all right, so long as you don’t pay mine, my dear,” said Jane Foley with an affectionate smile.
“Jenny!” Audrey protested, full of heroine-worship. “How could you think I would ever do such a mean thing!”
There came a dull, vague, voluminous sound from the direction of the Imperial Hall. It lasted for quite a number of seconds.
“He’s beginning,” said Jane Foley. “I do feel sorry for him.”
“Are we to start now?” Audrey asked deferentially.