"Shoes, please, Mrs. Bell!" she sang out. "You don't want me to be late, do you?"
"Coming this moment, Miss Delamere!" shouted an answering voice.
Mrs. Bell lumbered up the stairs with the shoes in her hand—high-heeled ones of the sort that only last a fortnight before losing shape.
"I just stopped to give them an extry polish," she panted.
Maggy took them from her and hurriedly put them on. While she buttoned them her landlady went on her knees and gave them a final rub up with her apron. She meant well.
"You'll have luck to-day," she said, regaining her feet and surveying her lodger with approval. "I should look out for the butcher's black cat on my way, if I was you. Back to dinner, dear?"
"I'll have a cut off whatever you've got, if I am," Maggy answered.
"Mine's hot Canterbury lamb and onion sauce."
"All right."
Maggy ran downstairs, slammed the hall door behind her and walked down the street into the main thoroughfare, looking for the green motor-bus that would take her within a stone's throw of the Pall Mall Theater. In a quarter of an hour she had reached that imposing edifice. Going in at the stage door she descended a flight of stone steps, traversed a long passage, and found herself upon the stage.