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A scrawny black cat rose and arched its back as Lola, telling the taxi man to wait, ran up the steps. One of those loose bells that jangle indiscreetly woke the echoes in the sleeping street, and the door was opened by the invincible Mrs. Rumbold, tired-eyed, with yawn marks all over her face. “Well, here you are, dearie,” she said, as cheerful as usual, “absobally-lootely to the minute. The old man ain’t turned up yet. But you’re not going to keep the taxi waiting, are you?”
“Yes,” said Lola.
“Gor blimey.” The comment was a perfectly natural one under the circumstances.
And while Lola changed back again into the day clothes of the lady’s maid, Mrs. Rumbold lent a willing hand and babbled freely. It was good to have some one to speak to. Her legless son had been put to bed two hours before, asking himself, “Have they forgotten?”
Finally the inevitable question, which Mrs. Rumbold, for all her lessons in discretion, simply could not resist. “Where have yer bin, dearie?”
And Lola said, “The Savoy. I dined with a knight in shining armor with a white cross on his chest.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Rumbold, “he was going on to a fancy ball, I suppose. Lord, how these boys love to dress themselves up.” But a lurking suspicion of something that was not quite right edged its way into that good woman’s thoughts. What was little Lola Breezy from the shop round the corner doing with a gent as ’ad enough money to dine at the Savoy and sport about in old-time costumes? “Well, of course, as I said before, you can only live once. But watch your step, dearie. Lots of banana skins about.”
And Lola threw her arms round the woman’s neck and kissed her warmly. “Fate has swept the pavement for me,” she said, once more as Feo would have spoken. “I shall not make any slip.”