“All sorts. Some are of the very best—the backbone of the nation. They go off and marry nice girls who don’t frequent night clubs and settle down for the rest of their lives.”
They drank their coffee and went upstairs, where questions of more immediate practical interest occupied their minds. Olivia’s wardrobe was passed in review, while Myra stood impassive like a sergeant at kit inspection.
“My poor child,” said Lydia, “you’ve not a single article, inside or outside, that is fit to wear. I’ll send you a second-hand clothes man who’ll buy up the whole lot as it stands and give you a good price for it. I don’t know yet quite what you’re thinking of doing—but at any rate you can’t do it in these things.”
Olivia looked wistfully at the home-made garments which Lydia cast with scorn across the bed. They, at least, had seemed quite dainty and appropriate.
“Well,” she said, with a sigh, “you know best, Lydia.”
These all-important matters held their attention till a quarter past eleven, when Mr. Sydney Rooke was announced. He was an elderly young man in evening dress, with crisp black hair parted in the middle and thinning at the temples. A little military moustache gave him an air of youth which was belied by deep lines in his sallow face. His dark eyes were rather tired and his mouth hard. But his manners were perfect. He gave them both to understand that though Lydia was, naturally, the lady of his evening’s devotion yet his heart was filled with a sense of Olivia’s graciousness. Half a dozen words and a bow did it. In a polite phrase, a bow and a gesture he indicated that if Miss Gale would join them, his cup of happiness would overflow. Olivia pleaded fatigue. Then another evening? With Mrs. Dawlish. A pleasant little party, in fact. He would be enchanted.
“We’ll fix it up for about a fortnight hence,” said Lydia significantly. “To-morrow, then, dear, at eleven.”
When they had gone Olivia, who had accompanied them to the flat door, threw herself on the sofa and, putting her hands behind her head stared over the edge of her own world into a new one, strange and bewildering.
Myra entered.
“Are you ever going to bed?”