She put her hand up and grasped the one in which Lola held the tongs, and drew her round. Strangely enough, this contradictory creature was moved. Whether it was because she saw in Lola’s eyes something which no one had been able to bring into her own, who can say? “It’s a married man,” she told herself, “or it’s Chalfont who isn’t thinking of marriage.” “Go easy, my dear,” she added aloud. “Believe only half you hear and get that verified. Men are the most frightful liars. Almost as bad as women. And they have a most convenient knack of forgetting.”
And then she released the girl so that she might resume her job, as time was short, and she was dining rather early with the new man at Ranelegh where “Twelfth Night” was to be acted as a pastoral by Bernard Fagan’s players. All the same, her mind dwelt not so much with curiosity as with concern upon Lola’s leave of absence, because she liked the girl and had found her very loyal, consistently cheery and always ready to hand.
“Let me see,” she said, with an uncharacteristic touch of womanliness that must have been brought out by the flaming feminism of Lola. “Among the frocks that I hurled at you on Sunday there’s pretty certain to be something that you can wear. Help yourself to anything else that you need. You must look nice. I insist on that. And you’ll also want something to put these things in. Tucked away somewhere there are one or two dress cases without my initials. They’ve come in useful on other occasions. Rout them out. I can’t think of anything else, but probably you will.” And she waved her hand with those long thin capable fingers, as much as to say, “Don’t thank me. You’d do the same for me if I were in your shoes.”
But Lola did thank her and wound up an incoherent burst by saying, “You’re the most generous woman I’ve ever imagined.”
“Oh, well, I have my moments,” replied Feo, who liked it all the same. “Y’see, ‘The Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under the skin.’” She was very generous and very much interested and if the truth were to be told a little worried too. For all her coolness at the Carlton, Lola seemed to her to be so young and so obviously virginal,—just the sort of girl who would make a great sacrifice, taking to it a pent-up ecstasy for which she might be asked to pay a pretty heavy price. And it was such a mistake to pay, according to Feo’s creed.
Finally, dressed and scented and wearing a pair of oddly shaped lapis earrings, she stood in front of a pier glass for a moment or two, looking herself over, finding under her eyes for the first time one or two disconcerting lines. What was she? Ten years older than this girl whose face was like an unplucked flower? Ten years certainly,—all packed with incidents, not one of which had been touched by ecstasy.
When she turned away it was with a short quick sigh. “Damn,” she said, off on one of her sudden tangents. “I can see myself developing into one of those women who join the Salvation Army because they’ve lost their looks, or get out of the limelight to read bitter verses about dead sea fruit, if I’m not precious careful.” And her mind turned back to the hour with Ellingham in that foolish futuristic room of hers and the way in which he had paced up and down, inarticulate, hands in pockets, and eventually been glad to go. Glad to go,—think of it.—Never mind, here was the man with the race horses. He might be a little medieval, perhaps. And on her way out she put her hand under Lola’s chin and tilted up her face. “Mf,” she said, “you have got it, badly, haven’t you?”
And Lola replied, “Yes, my lady,” and felt as though she had never left Queen’s Road, Bayswater.
“Well, good luck.” And Feo was gone.