They were late, and the curtain had risen when they were shown into their seats. The theatre was dark, and Esther could hardly see her way. She put out her hand with a smothered laugh and felt for Micky’s. “I can’t see,” she said.
His fingers closed about hers; such a little hand it felt. He wondered why she was being so kind to him to-night. He did not realise that she was enjoying herself so much that she felt on good terms with the whole world.
Esther sat between him and June, and Micky hardly looked at the stage at all. His eyes turned again and again to her rapt face and the eagerness of her eyes.
She had been to theatres lots of times, so she told him in a whisper, but never in the stalls before. She asked him if he didn’t like some of the frocks worn by the people close by.
Micky’s eyes flashed.
“Not so well as yours,” he said.
She drew away from him a little, and he wished he had not said it. In that one moment he felt that he had broken down all the friendliness she had shown him that evening. She did not speak again for some time.
In the interval June leaned over to him.
“Are you bored, Micky? You look bored to death.”