It was very different from the career she had planned. She wanted to build up a future, not to resign herself to a level, monotonous domesticity. But under the pressure of her present scare, the bare notion of any way of escape was welcome.
Carol departed with a distinct sense of disappointment. He hardly knew what he had hoped. But the impression he took away with him was that Bert had wholly failed to please or interest Millie. Not for a moment did he guess that the secret was out. Under such circumstances, with the state of feeling which she had so lately confessed to him, he would not have thought her self-possession possible.
Slowly Melicent walked back to her seat by the fire, where Theo had lighted another cigarette. On her homeward journey she had had time to decide upon her plan of action. She was not going to say a word of her discovery to anybody.
Her first impulse had been vehemently to reproach Carol Mayne for treachery; but reflection had showed that she could not do this without Bert being made aware that she knew him. To tell the Helstons would be to subject herself to the continual fret of knowing herself observed. They might even urge her to tell Bert that she knew; or counsel her to give up this building scheme, to which her ambition turned with fierce longing. She felt sure, in spite of her diffident words, that she could design and build at Lone Ash a house which should make her reputation. To do this in peace, she must keep her own counsel. After all, this was nobody's affair but her own. If Bert had come for her, as seemed fatally obvious, it all rested with him and with her. Single-handed he had engaged on the contest, and single-handed she would fight him. There seemed something a little cowardly in calling in the Helstons to her rescue. She did not mean to marry him. Well! He would soon find that out. There were plenty of girls in England for a man of property to woo successfully—Theo, for instance.
She leaned forward.
"Theo!" she said abruptly, "you've got to mind what you're about. There was a girl at school with me who went on the stage, and she did what you are doing—signed an agreement as principal boy—and she found she had done for herself. Ever after, she had only boys' parts offered her. 'Oh,' said they, 'you can't object, you have done it before.' She left the stage in consequence. Of course, for all I know, you may prefer being boy, but I thought I would just warn you what to expect."
"Awfully good of you," said Theo. She smoked in silence for a minute, then broke out: "Anyway, I'm not going another tour with Tarver's Company. After that Minnie Leslie's husband turning up, as I told you, at Crewe, when she was in rooms with—"
"'Tsha!'" It was a little soft sound of disgust that Millie was prone to make. "Look here, Theo, if you really are going on with this kind of life, your only way to keep clean is to turn your back on all that kind of thing. Don't be mixed up in it—don't talk about it."
"It's the agent that counts," said Theo evasively. "Bates is a right good sort, and he isn't going to see me let in, you bet I was pretty careful what agent I went to. I know the ropes, though you think me a country bumpkin. I can't help knowing that Batey's going to give me every lift he can."
"Why?" asked Milicent bluntly.