I glanced at the red flower she had tucked into her overall, and said: "That woman, you know, who sang those two songs, she was the best of all."
Elizabeth, with a very quick look up at me, asked brusquely, "Which woman?"
I had opened my mouth to answer, "Why, the Spanish lady, of course," but the words froze on my lips at the picture of which I had caught sight at this moment.
In the vestibule, at the foot of the wide stairs, stood Captain Holiday, laughing whole-heartedly; a group of people were clustered about him and about another figure standing close to him waving a big black fan. This figure was the sight that arrested me.
It was tall and slim-hipped, clad in a black and spangled gown with a low-cut bodice that revealed noble white shoulders; it was, as far as the figure went, that of the Signora Dolores who had appeared at the beginning of the second part of the concert; but—where were the mantilla and the glossy black tresses over which it had been so artistically draped? Gone—one with the other! Above the white shoulders appeared the laughing face and the small mercilessly-groomed golden head of a young man!
"Topping girl he makes, doesn't he?" I heard the voice of the red-haired actor-soldier say just behind me. "That's when I make him up; his own mother wouldn't know him. Why, the female impersonator we had in our Brigade troupe isn't a patch on him; not the professional who used to get fifteen quid a week salary! Asked me for a few tips, he did. But there was nothing I could teach him; only lace him into his 23-inch ladies' corsets——"
I was gasping as I looked. Now that I saw the black wig dangling from the hand that held the fan, now that I knew—oh, I felt I ought to have guessed before.
The things that give away any masquerading "girl" were there. Bert Errol and Co. have not yet learnt to hide the thickness of the wrist, the muscle down the neck just under the ear, the checked and conscious movements of limbs that know no medium between mincing and the normal stride, and (most unmistakable of all) the angle of the male arm at the elbow, which makes "V" instead of "U," as in a woman's soft arm.
All the rest was—what an excellent disguise!
"Elizabeth!" I exclaimed stupidly, "look!"