The association of Sylvia with the two girls begun at Birmingham was not interrupted until the end of the tour. Lily and Dorothy depended upon it, Lily because Sylvia saved her the trouble of thinking for herself, Dorothy because she found in Sylvia some one who could deflect all the difficulties of life on tour and leave her free to occupy herself with her own prosperity and her own comforts. Dorothy possessed a selfishness that almost attained to the dignity of ambition, though never quite, as her conceit would not allow her to state an object in her career, for fear of failure; her method was invariably to seize the best of any situation that came along, whether it was a bed, a chair, a potato, or a man; this method with ordinary good luck would insure success through life. Lily was too lazy to minister to Dorothy’s selfishness; moreover, she often managed in taking the nearest and easiest to rob Dorothy of the best.
Sylvia was perfectly aware of their respective characters, but she was always willing to give herself any amount of trouble to preserve beauty around her; Lily and Dorothy were not really more troublesome than two cats would have been; in fact, rather less, because at any rate they could carry themselves, if not their bags.
Life on tour went its course with the world divided into three categories—the members of the company, the public expressing its personality in different audiences, and for the actors saloon-bars and the drinks they were stood, for the actresses admirers and the presents they were worth. Sometimes when the saloon-bars and the admirers were alike unprofitable, the members of the company mixed among themselves whether in a walk round a new town or at tea in rooms where a landlady possessed hospitable virtues. Sylvia had a special gift for getting the best out of landladies, and the men of the company came more often to tea with herself and her friends than with the other ladies. They came, indeed, too often to please Dorothy, who disapproved of Lily’s easy-going acceptance of the sort of love that is made because at the moment there is nothing else to do. She spoke to Sylvia about this, who agreed with her, but thought that with Lily it was inevitable.
“But not with boys in the company,” Dorothy urged, disdainfully. “It makes us all so cheap. I don’t want to put on side, but, after all, we are a little different from the other girls.”
Sylvia found this belief universal in the chorus. She could not think of any girl who had not at one time or another taken her aside and claimed for herself, and by the politeness owed to present company for Sylvia, this “little difference.”
“Personally,” Sylvia said, “I think we’re all much the same. Some of us drop our aitches, others our p’s and q’s; some of us sing flat, the rest sing sharp; and we all look just alike when we’re waiting for the train on Sunday morning.”
Nevertheless, with all her prevision of a fate upon Lily’s conduct, Sylvia did speak to her about the way in which she tolerated the familiarity of the men in the company.
“I suppose you’re thinking of Tom,” Lily said.
“Tom, Dick, and Harry,” Sylvia put in.
“Well. I don’t like to seem stuck up,” Lily explained. “Tom’s always very nice about carrying my bag and getting me tea when we’re traveling.”