“We were just going to ask you the same thing,” declared Billy. “Can't we all go and play about somewhere? We've just landed, and we want to be looked after. Any theatres in this little town still?”
“Cheer-oh!” ejaculated Billy. “Let's all go and find out.”
So they went, and managed very successfully to forget war and even stepmothers. They were all little more than children in enjoyment of simple pleasures still, since war had fallen upon them at the very threshold of life, cutting them off from all the cheery happenings that are the natural inheritance of all young things. The years that would ordinarily have seen them growing tired of play had been spent in grim tasks; now they were children again, clamouring for the playtime they had lost. They found enormous pleasure in the funny little French restaurant, where Madame, a lady whose sympathies were as boundless as her waist, welcomed them with wide smiles, delighting in the broken French of Billy and Harrison, and deftly tempting them to fresh excursions in her language. She put a question in infantile French to Bob presently, whereupon that guileless youth, with a childlike smile, answered her with a flood of idiomatic phrases, in an accent purer than her own—collapsing with helpless laughter at her amazed face. After which, Madame neglected her other patrons to hover about their table like a stout, presiding goddess, guiding them gently to the best dishes on the menu, and occasionally putting aside their own selection with a hasty, “Mon-non; you vill not like that one to-day.” She patted Cecilia in a motherly fashion at parting, and their bill was only about half what it should have been.
They found a musical comedy, and laughed their way through it—Billy and Harrison had apparently no cares in the world, and Bob and Cecilia were caught up in the whirl of their high spirits, so that anything became a huge joke. The evening flew by on airy wings, when Billy insisted on taking them to supper after the theatre. Cecilia allowed herself a fleeting vision of Mrs. Rainham, and then, deciding that she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, followed gaily. And supper was so cheery a meal that she forgot all about time—until, just at the end, she caught sight of the restaurant clock.
“Half-past eleven! Oh, Bobby!”
“Well, if it is—you poor little old Cinderella,” said Bob.
But he hurried her away, for all that, amid a chorus of farewells and efforts, on the part of Billy and Harrison, to arrange further meetings. They ran to the nearest tube station, and dived into its depths; and, after being whisked underground for a few minutes, emerged into the cool night. Cecilia slipped her arm through her brother's as they hurried along the empty street.
“Now, you keep your nose in the air,” Bobby told her. “You aren't exactly a kid now, and she can't really do anything to you. Oh, by Jove—I was thinking, in the theatre, she might interfere with our letters.”
“She's quite equal to it,” said Cecilia.
“Just what she'd revel in doing. Well, you can easily find out. I'll write to you to-morrow, and again the next day—just ordinary letters, with nothing particular in them except an arrangement to meet next Saturday. If you don't get them you'll know she's getting at the mail first.”