“It will be awful to be quite the last of all,” the elder girl went on apprehensively. “They won’t let us sleep in the theatre, I’m sure; not after the opera-glasses have been put away. And the backs of theatres aren’t in London at all; they’re in a horrible phantom neighbourhood of their own.”
—“’Ere y’are, lidies!” Their wheeled deliverance was at hand.
Peter was spending the night with Merle. She always appreciated the moment, when, softly closing behind them the door of the house in Lancaster Gate, she attended to the bolts and locks, while Merle pierced the rich blackness with the rays of a small electric lantern, which was to guide them burglariously up the thickly carpeted stairs. It was good, remembering their shivering moments in No-Man’s-Land, now to sprawl in luxury across the brocaded bed-cover, and watch Merle submit to the ministrations of the elderly French bonne, who maided Mademoiselle, and also had a great deal to say as to what was comme il faut for the latter’s general deportment.
“Bonsoir, Nicole. Et merci bien.”
“’Soir, Mesdemoiselles. And do not stay too long chattering; it is not good for the complexion.” Nicole retired.
“Good Heavens!” ejaculated Peter; “that I should live to own a friend who owns a maid. A maid and a dressing-gown. Can’t you do something about it? You know, it’s quite easy to pull off your own stockings, once you’ve learnt how.”
“Have you brought a comb this time?” Merle enquired with dangerous politeness.
“No, I haven’t. ’Cos why? ’Cos mine has only seven teeth left in its head, and I daren’t expose its nakedness to the eye of Nicole, since she will lay out the contents of my suit-case on the bed, as they do for the Lady Alice in novelette society house-parties.”
She brushed fiercely at her tangle of curling fair hair, that was not long enough for the need of hairpins, nor short enough to lie smooth to her head.
“About the comb,” she continued; “I always say: ‘don’t tell me they’ve forgotten to put it in again! That comes of letting Amy pack for me’—or Bertha or Marion or Pussy, or any other imaginary small sister I haven’t got. It quite deceives Nicole; she sympathises, lends me your second-best, and I daresay wonders at the multiplicity of my mother’s offspring.”