A few weeks afterward she stood on Euston platform, with a queer feeling, half-way between sickness and breathlessness, and was met by Madame Aldavini with Eileen and two older girls, and bundled into a reserved compartment. Very soon she was waving a handkerchief to her mother and May, already scarcely visible in the murk of a London fog. Life had begun.
Chapter IX: Life, Art and Love
EILEEN VAUGHAN was, of course, perfectly familiar to Jenny, but the two other girls who were to be her companions for several weeks had to be much observed during the first half-hour of the journey north.
Madame Aldavini was in a first-class compartment, as she wanted to be alone in order to work out on innumerable sheets of paper the arrangement of a new ballet. So the Aldavini Quartette shared between them the four corners of a third-class compartment. Jenny felt important to the world, when she read on the slip pasted to the window: "Reserved for Aldavini's Quartette, Euston to Glasgow." It was written in looking-glass writing, to be sure, but that only made the slow deciphering of it the more delightful.
However, it was read clearly at last, and Jenny turned round once more to look at her companions. Immediately opposite was Valérie Duval—a French girl with black fountains of hair, with full red lips and a complexion that darkened from ivory to warm Southern roses when the blood coursed to her cheeks. Her eyes glowed under heavy brown lids as she talked very sweetly in a contralto French accent. Soon she took Jenny on her knees and said:
"You will tell me all your secrets—yes?"
To which Jenny scoffingly answered:
"Secrets? I'm not one for secrets."
"But you will confide to me all your passions, your loves,—yes?"
"Love?" said Jenny, looking round over her shoulder at Valérie. "Love's silly."