"My dear—the theatre! I'd forgotten all about it. I am an honest working girl, and the curtain goes up at eight-thirty!"
"By gum!" said Roy, who of course knew all about "Too Many Girls." "Absent from parade when warned for duty, eh? That will never do. What about it? Can't you get a night off?"
"I might," said Marjorie doubtfully. "Most of the girls send a doctor's certificate. But I don't think it's the game. They overdo it so."
"Quite right!" said that young disciplinarian, Lieutenant Birnie. "But it's a bit rough, all the same."
A key rattled loudly and tactfully in the outer door, which then opened with mature deliberation, and Liss appeared.
"I hadn't meant to butt in," she explained, after introductions, "but I just want to say that I have seen Lancaster, and he says you can have the night off. I told him about you," she explained to Roy, "and he said you could have her this evening if you promised faithfully to send her back for to-morrow's show."
"I will bring her back myself," replied Roy, "and buy the whole front row to watch her from!"
"Righto! Good-bye, children! Enjoy yourselves!" said Liss, and vanished, like a diplomatic little wraith.
After that, Roy and Marjorie sat down to make plans.
"First of all," began Roy, "I must hop off to the club and order a bed and have a hot bath—a real hot bath! Sah vah song dearie, as we say at the Quai D'Orsay. My last one was in a little house somewhere behind Albert, in a sort of zinc coffin in front of the kitchen stove, with the family sitting tactfully in the scullery. But I am digressing: let us resume! After that, we will go and dine somewhere. By the way, I suppose there is still plenty of food to be had in these days?"