Passing the long waiting queue at the gallery entrance to the Royalty this afternoon, I glanced idly towards all those people who had stood for over an hour, probably, to get a shilling seat; the playgoers to whom I myself belonged a couple of months ago. Yet I never felt I’d belonged to them.... I suppose no woman, from a factory-hand to a viscountess, feels that she really “belongs” to any but the life of luxury. I don’t believe men feel that as strongly—and yet it’s they who are supposed to be the more finished and civilized sex. I must ask Mr. Waters, now that I know him well enough, what he thinks about this?
I was just wondering, when, out of that mosaic of black and coloured pattern formed by the crowd, there turned with one movement three dabs of colour, three cheap, effective little hats; and three girlish faces, alight with amusement and recognition, were lifted towards us.
They nodded and smiled; and I, leaning forward out of the car, was just in time to wave my hand to them.
“Friends of yours?” said my employer, glancing back as he raised his hat!
“Why, yes! Didn’t you know them?”
“No! Why should I?”
“Because you see them every day,” I laughed. “They were Miss Robinson, Miss Holt and Miss Smith from your office.”
“No? By Jove,” said Mr. Waters, rather blankly. Which surprised me rather, as I remembered his care that “the other typists should know for a fact” with whom I was going out, that first time of all.
I was conscious, though I couldn’t see where they sat in the gallery, that their three pairs of eyes must be glued to us in our front-row stalls. Nothing could have been more conventional than our appearance—we were absolutely the model of a prosperous young engaged couple up from the suburbs; I, prettily dressed, with the inevitable box of chocolates on my lap; he, good tempered and easy of manner, paying me all the customary attentions of programme, helping me off with my coat, seeing that I had opera-glasses, the best seat, and so on, and yet—apart from the “official engagement” side of it, how really unconventional was our relation!
So much more satisfactory under the circumstances than a real engagement! Or that pie-bald thing, an understanding! Or that other form of platonic friendship which either the girl or the man is always hoping, or fearing, may turn into something else!