The key and the card were put inside the box; and she hurried off to the theatre, laughing to herself in an absurdly delicious excitement at the thought of hiding it under Bram’s pillow to-night.
The dress rehearsal was not over till three o’clock on Christmas morning. The ladies and gentlemen of the company were all so tired when at last they were dismissed that when they came out of the theatre and found Greenwich white and silent under a heavy fall of snow, not even the comedians had any energy to be funny with snowballs.
“What time’s the call to-morrow, dear?” one of the chorus called back to a friend in a weary voice.
“There’s no call to-morrow, duck. It’s Christmas Day.”
“Gard, so it is!”
“Don’t forget the curtain goes up for the matinée on Boxing Day at half-past one, dear.”
“Right-o!”
“Queenie’s got her boy staying at the ‘Ship,’” the chorus girl explained to Nancy. “And she’s the limit for forgetting everything when he’s about. She’s potty on him. Merry Christmas, Miss O’Finn.”
“Merry Christmas to you.”
All the way back up the court, at the end of which was the stage-door, the Christmas greetings of one to another floated thinly along the snowy air.