“You look rather French,” was his most audacious sally toward the personal.
“Funny you should have said that, because my mother was a stewardess on the Calais boat. She was Belgian herself.”
Again the conversation dropped.
“I’m waiting for a friend,” Daisy volunteered. “She’s been having a row with her fellow, and she promised to come on down to the Orange and tell me about it. Dolly Wearne is her name. She ought to have been here by now. What’s the time, kid?”
It was after midnight, and Daisy began to look round anxiously.
“I’m rather worried over Doll,” she confided to Michael, “because this fellow of hers, Hungarian Dave, is a proper little tyke when he turns nasty. I said to Doll, I said to her, ‘Doll, that dirty rotter you’re so soft over’ll swing for you before he’s done. Why don’t you leave him,’ I said, ‘and come and live along with me for a bit?’”
“And what did she say?” Michael asked.
But there was no answer, for Daisy had caught sight of Dolly herself coming down the stairs, and she was now hailing her excitedly.
“Oh, doesn’t she look shocking white,” exclaimed Daisy. “Doll!” she shouted, waving to her. “Over here, duck.”
The four offensive youths near them in the alcove mimicked her in exaggerated falsetto.