Clad in a pair of striped “culottes,” she had assumed, notwithstanding sororal remonstrance, the conspicuous livery of Paris.
“I just looked in to thank you, darling,” she began, “for all your sweetness and goodness.... Oh Sally, when I saw the playbill with my name on it (right in among the gentlemen!) I thought I should have died. Who could have guessed ever it would be a breeches part?”
“Turn round.”
“Such jealous murmurings already as there are; a-citizen-of-Verona—an envious super without a line, whispered, as I went by, that my legs in these tissue tights had a look of forced asparagus.”
“Nonsense.”
“Of course: I knew that, Sally. But devil take me. How I’ll hate going back into virginals again; these trousers spoil you for skirts.”
“Sprite.”
“And I’d a trifling triumph too, darling, which I chose to ignore: just as I was leaving my dressing-room, Jack Whorwood, all dressed up for Tybalt, accosted me with a fatuous easy smile. ‘I want your picture, Miss Iris, with your name on it,’ he said. ‘Do you?’ I said. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Then I fear you’ll have to,’ I said. Oh, he was cross! But all the while, Sally, he was speaking I could feel the wolf....”
“Better be careful,” Mrs. Sixsmith snapped.
“As if I’d cater to his blue besoigns!”