“It does!” said the English mistress eloquently. She sat upright on the green plush sofa, her shabby slippers well in evidence beneath the edge of her shabby skirt, staring with curious eyes at the radiant figure of the girl in the opposite chair. “I don’t think you need a day at all!”
“Because I’m going to a solitary party? Only two minutes ago, my love, you were sympathising with my hard lot! I shall have Fridays. I’m tired on Fridays, and it’s getting near the time for making up accounts. I can be quite a creditable grumbler on Fridays.”
“Well, just as you like! You are going to the party, I suppose? Haven’t changed your mind by any chance, and determined to spend the evening hectoring me! If you are going, you’d better go. I’ll sit up for you and keep some cocoa—”
Claire rose with a smile.
“I appreciate the inference! Starved and disillusioned, I am to creep home and weep on your bosom. Well, we’ll see! Good-bye for the present. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back...”
A minute’s whistling at the front door produced a taxi, in which Claire seated herself and was whirled westward through brightly lighted streets. In the less fashionable neighbourhoods the usual Saturday crowd thronged round the shops and booths, making their purchases at an hour when perishable goods could be obtained at bargain prices. Claire and Cecil had themselves made such expeditions before now, coming home triumphant with some savoury morsel for supper, and with quite a lavish supply of flowers to deck the little room. At the time the expeditions had been pleasant enough, and there had seemed nothing in the least infra dig in taking advantage of the opportunity; but to-night the girl in the cloudy cloak looked through the windows of her chariot with an ineffable condescension, and found it difficult to believe that she herself had ever made one of so insignificant a throng!
“How I do love luxury! It’s the breath of my nostrils,” she said to herself with a little sigh of content, as she straightened herself in her seat, and smiled back at her own reflection in the strip of mirror opposite. Her hair had “gone” just right. What a comfort that was! Sometimes it took a stupid turn and could not be induced to obey. She opened the cloak at the top and peeped at the dainty whiteness within, with the daring, thoroughly French touch of vivid emerald green which gave a cachet to the whole. Yes, it was quite as pretty as she had believed. Every whit as becoming. “I don’t look a bit like a school-mistress!” smiled Claire, and snoodled back again against the cushions with a deep breath of content.
She was not in the least shy. Many a girl about to make her entrée into a strange house would have been suffering qualms of misgiving by this time, but Claire had spent her life more or less in public, and was accustomed to meet strangers as a matter of course, so there was no dread to take the edge off her enjoyment.
Even when the taxi slowed down to take its place in the stream of vehicles which were drawn up before Mrs Willoughby’s house, she knew only a heightened enjoyment in the realisation that it was not a party at all, but a real big fashionable At Home.
The usual crowd of onlookers stood on either side of the door, and as Claire descended from the taxi, the sight of her golden slippers and floating clouds of gauze evoked a gratifying murmur of admiration. She passed on with her head in the air, looking neither to right nor left, but close against the rails stood a couple of working girls whose wistful eyes drew her own as with a magnet. In their expression was a whole world of awe, of admiration; they looked at her as at a denizen of another sphere, hardly presuming even to be envious, so infinitely was she removed from their grey-hued life. As Claire met their eyes, an impulse seized her to stop and tell them that she was just a working girl like themselves, but convention being too strong to allow of such familiarities, she smiled instead, with such a frank and friendly acknowledgment of their admiration as brought a flash of pleasure to their faces.