"Not exactly ashamed," Joan answered, "it would hurt him to know, that is all. I came to London two years ago because I was going to have a baby. It was never born, because I was in an accident a few months before it should have come."
"But why tell him, why tell him?" Fanny clamoured. "Men have lots of secrets in their lives which they don't tell to good women, why must they want to know all about our pasts. I have always thought I should tell a man just exactly as much as I wanted to and not a whisper more. Honey," she drew close again and caught hold of Joan's hands, "it doesn't pay to tell them, the better they are the more they bring it up against you. If they don't say anything you can see it in their eyes. 'She has been bad once,' they say, 'she may always be bad again.'"
"Yes," agreed Joan. "It does not pay to tell them, as you say. That is why I am going to go back to my own shadows alone, because if you love a person you cannot keep a secret from him."
"But it wouldn't exactly be a secret," Fanny pleaded, "it would just be something that it was no business of his to know."
Joan laughed. "Your philosophy of life, Fanny, is delightful. But if you don't hurry up with your dressing you will be late when the call boy comes."
She had the dressing-room to herself presently, for she did not have to appear until the second act, and as she sat there, reading over her part, the call boy put in his head with an impish grin.
"A gentleman left these for you, miss," he held out a large bunch of violets, "most particular you should get them before you went on, he was, and he will be round again after the show. Same gentleman," he winked at her, "as has been here most regular like since the third night."
"All right, Tommy, thank you," Joan answered. She held out her hands for the violets. They were very sweet-scented and heavy; she let them fall on the dressing-table, but after Tommy had vanished, whistling shrilly along the passage, she bent forward and buried her cheeks and lips in their fragrance. Her tears smarted in her eyes. This man had grown so suddenly dear to her that it hurt her almost more than she could bear to shut him out of her life.
When Fanny danced into the room presently it was to find her standing before the looking-glass, and against the soft blue of her waistbelt the violets showed up almost like a stain.
"He's there," Fanny told her, "third from centre in the second row. Young Swetenham is with him, but none of the women folk, praise be to heaven. Have you asked him to the supper afterwards?"