Suddenly—perhaps it was this thought of Evie elsewhere that did it—she got up, sought the cloakroom, and walked out of the place. She went home, once more quietly and steadily thinking of that vista of lights and cigar smoke and laughing mouths and gilded pilasters—the way so many girls went.
The row she expected with Ivy in the morning was not a moment delayed. It began in the lift in which they both happened to ascend together.
"Good-morning," said Ivy stiffly. "I hope you got home in good time last night."
Louie waited until the liftman had clashed the doors to behind them; then, "I'd a headache," she said.
"Well, perhaps it's better than having one in the morning," said Ivy, more icily still. "All the same, there is such a thing as playing the game when you go out with people."
"I'm sorry. I oughtn't to have come," said Louie, walking with the angry girl to the telephone exchange, where the lights on the great switchboard came and went like the sparks at the back of a gate. They were coming and going with great rapidity that morning.
"Oh, much obliged for your company, I'm sure," Ivy broke out, "but——"
"Sssh!" came from a girl who stretched the rubber worms.
"Sssh yourself, Daisy Dawson—time you knew how to speak into a phone by this time!" snapped Ivy.
But another and a louder "Sssh!" came from another girl, and suddenly Mr. Stonor's head appeared in the doorway.