The drive was, as he had said, a long one, through narrow streets and past huge lumbering tramcars that were new to Claudia. The streets during the latter part of the journey were lined with roadside stalls illuminated by flaring naptha lamps that cast weird shadows over faces that reminded her of those in Dickens’ novels. There were barrows with all kinds of china, stalls brilliantly red with joints of meat, others piled high with greenstuff and with trays of toffee and sweets. It seemed to Claudia that she had never heard so many hoarse, raucous voices before, punctuated every now and then by the pipe of some child trying to make itself heard among the tumult. Between the activities of the stalls they passed rows of grey, grimy little houses, timber-yards and factories, brightly-lit public houses, and always the trams, still more brilliant, gliding along full of passengers, like great ships in full sail.
She and Jack did not talk intimately any more. She listened to his account of a big golfing competition. Only once did he revert to their previous conversation. It came up apropos of Jack saying that Colin Paton had been in up to the last round.
“He plays such a good, steady game. Upon my word, I like to watch him. I say, Claudia, if it were he, instead of this painter chap, I wouldn’t mind. But, then, he’s Gilbert’s friend, isn’t he?”
Claudia was spared any reply by the stoppage of their car outside a brightly-lit theatre with placards galore. She noticed at once several of The Girlie Girl in various costumes and various smiles. It was not one of the new suburban halls, but there was plenty of light on the frontage.
“Got to find the stage-door,” said Jack. “Here, perhaps this is it, up this alley.”
The alley was dark and very dirty and Claudia held up her skirts fastidiously. A boy, with a jug in his hand, came running down while they were half-way, and a man with a clay pipe came out of a grimy, narrow door at the end.
It was the stage-door. Claudia almost shrank back when she saw the narrow passage way with its blackened walls and filthy staircase, which she found she was expected to descend. The atmosphere was indescribable, frowsy, hot and stale. The strains of the orchestra reached them intermittently as the doors below were opened and shut.
“You’ll find her down there,” called out the door-keeper encouragingly. “She ain’t on yet.”
The boy had returned with the beer-jug, and the beer was being slopped on the stairs as he shoved his way past them. A curious roaring sound was in progress now, and it took Claudia a little time to realize that it was applause from the front of the house.
She followed Jack down the stairs, and she saw that the dirtiness of his surroundings did not embarrass him. Evidently he was used to them. The steps were of stone and the railings were iron, and it seemed to Claudia like some curious sort of dirty prison, rather than a hall of gaiety.