Sally looked at him inquiringly with her blue eyes under their thick black lashes. Was he advanced, this plausible, intelligent-looking young man, who was a friend of Arnold Denison’s and liked “The Penitent,” and, indeed, everything else? Was he free and progressive and on the side of the right things, or was he merely an amiable stick-in-the-mud like Jimmy? She couldn’t gather, from his alert, expressive face and bright hazel eyes and rather sensitive mouth: they chiefly conveyed a capacity for reception, an openness to all impressions, a readiness to spread sails to any wind. If he were a person of parts, if he had a brain and a mind and a soul, and if at the same time he were an ardent server of the Church—that, Sally thought unconsciously, might be a witness in the Church’s favour. Only here she remembered Jimmy’s friend at St. Gregory’s, Bob Traherne; he was all that and more, he had brain and mind and soul and an ardent fire of zeal for many of the right things (Sally, a little behind the times here, was a Socialist by conviction), and yet in spite of him one was sure that somehow the Church wouldn’t do, wouldn’t meet all the requirements of this complex life. Sally had learnt that lately, and was learning it more and more. She was proud of having learnt it; but still, she had occasional regrets.
She made a hole in an orange, and put a lump of sugar in it and sucked it.
“The great advantage of that way,” she explained, “is that all the juice goes inside you, and doesn’t mess the plates or anything else. You see, Mrs. Jones is rather old, and not fond of washing up.”
So they all made holes and put in sugar, and put the juice inside them. Then Jane and Sally retired to exchange their cooking pinafores for out-door things, and then they all rode to “Squibs” on the top of a bus. They were joined at the pit door by one Billy Raymond, a friend of theirs—a tall, tranquil young man, by trade a poet, with an attractive smile and a sweet temper, and a gentle, kind, serenely philosophical view of men and things that was a little like Jane’s, only more human and virile. He attracted Eddy greatly, as his poems had already done.
To remove anxiety on the subject, it may be stated at once that the first night of “Squibs” was neither a failure nor a triumphant success. It was enjoyable, for those who enjoyed the sort of thing—(fantastic wit, clever dialogue, much talk, little action, and less emotion)—and dull for those who didn’t. It would certainly never be popular, and probably the author would have been shocked and grieved if it had been. The critics approved it as clever, and said it was rather lengthy and highly improbable. Jane, Sally, Arnold, Billy Raymond, and Eddy enjoyed it extremely. So did Eileen Le Moine and her companion Bridget Hogan, who watched it from a box. Cecil Le Moine wandered in and out of the box, looking plaintive. He told Eileen that they were doing it even worse than he had feared. He was rather an engaging-looking person, with a boyish, young-Napoleonic beauty of face and a velvet smoking-jacket, and a sweet, plaintive voice, and the air of an injured child about him. A child of genius, perhaps; anyhow a gifted child, and a lovable one, and at the same time as selfish as even a child can be.
Eileen Le Moine and Miss Hogan came to speak to their friends in the pit before taking their seats. Eddy was introduced to them, and they talked for a minute or two. When they had gone, Sally said to him, “Isn’t Eileen attractive?”
“Very,” he said.
“And Bridget’s a dear,” added Sally, childishly boasting of her friends.
“I can imagine she would be,” said Eddy. Miss Hogan had amused him during their short interview. She was older than the rest of them; she was perhaps thirty-four, and very well dressed, and with a shrewd, woman-of-the-world air that the others quite lacked, and dangling pince-nez, and ironic eyes, and a slight stutter. Eddy regretted that she was not sitting among them; her caustic comments would have added salt to the evening.
“Bridget’s worldly, you know,” Sally said. “She’s the only one of us with money, and she goes out a lot. You see how smartly she’s dressed. She’s the only person I’m really friends with who’s like that. She’s awfully clever, too, though she doesn’t do anything.”