Claudia was astounded at the value of the jewellery that reposed in the shabby, unremarkable leather case. She saw that Fay loved the things by the way she touched them. Some of them were beautiful. But presently Fay gave a sigh and, selecting a large diamond pendant which she put round her neck, over her nightdress, she shut up the case. “Put the things back,” she said queerly. “I—I——” Then, to Claudia’s dismay, she began to sob rather pitifully like a frightened child. Claudia drew the little head to her breast.
“Hush, dear, you mustn’t excite yourself. It’s bad for you. Nurse will say it’s my fault, you know.”
“I’m not very old,” sobbed Fay, “I’m only twenty-two. Some people live to be very old.”
Claudia tried to think of a laughing reply, but no words would come. She could only rearrange the matinée cap and put her own cool cheek against the one wet with tears.
“Fay, dear, to please me—you said you’d do anything for me—don’t cry so. Are you—are you in pain?”
She wiped the tears away gently with her handkerchief, the rouge from the cheeks coming off too.
Presently Fay grew a little calmer.
“Claudia, I want to ask you something because you are honest.” Oh! how Claudia’s heart sank! She dreaded what the next words would be, but as usual the unexpected came from Fay.
“Do you think this is a punishment for—for not being good? Nurse has got a Bible, and I—just for fun—asked her to read me a bit. It frightened me. I’m not what you call bad, am I?”
“No, Fay,” said Claudia steadily, determined that not all the religion or moral teaching in the world should make her distress the doomed woman. “No, Fay, don’t distress yourself. I don’t believe for an instant this is a punishment.” She tried to speak simply, but the task was difficult. Her own religion was a very vague one. She believed that if there were a God, as so many Christians averred, a God who was all-loving, understanding beyond finite conception, there could never be any question of punishment such as Fay suggested. Fay’s mind and morals were stunted, undeveloped. Since she had come in contact with the queer people who were her fellow “pros,” Claudia had come very clearly to recognize that the lives of such artistes, especially those like Fay, who had been born practically on the boards of a music-hall, were not subject to the ordinary judgments of society. Theirs was a little world of its own, with its obligations, its own ideas of right and wrong. To do another artiste out of a job, to queer her turn, to refuse to put your hand in your pocket for a deserving case, to crib another person’s business or her “fancy boy,” those were unpardonable sins in Fay’s world. To have flitted from lover to lover—in her case without any breaking of hearts or ugly recriminations—was only a venial one.