Part 4 (1/2)

”And for the love of heaven, why not? Breezy, why the deuce haven't you told me about this girl? I would like to have her about me. She's decorative. I wouldn't mind being touched by her and I'm sure she'd look after my things. Look how neat she is. She might have come out of a bandbox.”

Miss Breezy bit her lip. She was bitterly annoyed. She was unaware of the expression but she felt that Lola had double-crossed her,-as indeed she had. ”Well, my lady,” she said, ”to tell you the truth, I didn't think that you would care to have two people of the same family in your house. It always leads to trouble.”

”Oh, rot,” said Lady Feo, ”I loathe those old s.h.i.+bboleths. They're so silly.” She turned to Lola. ”Look here, do you really mean to say that you'd rather be a lady's maid than kick your heels about in the chorus?”

”If you please, my lady,” said Lola.

”Well, I think you'll miss a lot of fun, but as far as I'm concerned, you're an absolute G.o.dsend. The girl I've had for two years is going to be married. Of course, I can't stop that, as much as I shall miss her.

The earth needs repeopling, so I must let her go. The question has been where to get another. With all the unemployment no one seems very keen on doing anything but work in factories. I'd love to have you. Come by all means. Breezy, engage her. I hope we shall rub along very nicely together.”

As much to hide the gleam in her eyes from her aunt as to show deference to her new mistress, Lola bowed. ”I thank you, my lady,” she said.

”Fine,” said Lady Feo, ”fine. That's great. Saves me a world of trouble.

Pretty lucky thing that I looked in here, wasn't it?” She went to the door and turned. ”When can you come, Lola?”

”To-morrow.-To-night.”

”To-night. I will let Emily off at once. She'll be glad enough. I'll send you home in the car. You can pack your things and get back in time to brush my hair. I suppose you know something about your job?”

Miss Breezy broke in hurriedly. Even now perhaps it might not be too late to beat this girl at her own game. ”That's it, my lady,” she said, tumbling over her words. ”She doesn't know anything about it. I'm afraid I ought to say--”

”Oh, well, Breezy, that's nothing new. They none of 'em know anything.

I'll teach her. I don't want a sham expert with her nose in the air. All I need is a girl with quick fingers, nippy on her feet, good to look at, who will laugh at my jokes. You promise to do that, Lola?”

A most delicious smile curled all about Lola's mouth. ”I promise, my lady,” she said.

Lady Feo nodded at her. ”She'll make a sensation,” she thought. ”How jealous they'll all be.-Righto, then. Seven o'clock. Don't be late. So long.” And off she went, slamming the door behind her.

”You little devil,” said Miss Breezy, her dignity in great slabs at her feet.

But Lola had won. And the amazing part of it was that the door of the house in Dover Street had been opened to her by Fallaray's wife.

PART II

I

Mrs. Malwood was hipped. She had been losing heavily at bridge, her Pomeranian had been run over in Berkeley Square and taken to the dog's hospital, her most recent flame had just been married to his colonel's daughter, and her fourth husband was still alive. Poor little soul, she had lots to grumble about. So she had come round to be cheered up by Feo Fallaray who always managed to laugh through deaths and epidemics to find her friend in the first stages of being dressed for dinner. She had explained her mental att.i.tude, received a hearty kiss and been told to lie down and make herself comfortable. There she was, at the moment, in one of the peculiar frocks which had become almost like the uniform of Feo's ”gang.” She was not old, except in experience. In fact, she was not more than twenty-three. But as she lay on the sofa with her eyes closed and her lashes like black fans on her cheeks, a little pout on her pretty mouth and her bobbed head resting upon a brilliant cus.h.i.+on, she looked, in those clothes of hers, like a school girl whose headmistress was a woman of an aesthetic turn of mind but with a curious penchant for athleticism. Underneath her smock of duvetyn, the color of a ripe horse-chestnut, she wore bloomers and stockings rolled down under her knees,-as everybody could see. She might have been a rather swagger girl scout who never scouted, and there was just a touch of masculinity about her without anything muscular. She was, otherwise, so tiny a thing that any sort of a man could have taken her up in one hand and held her above his head. Very different from Lady Feo, whose shoulders were broad, whose bones were large, who stood five foot ten without her shoes, who could hand back anything that was given to her and swing a golf club like a man.

”I've just been dipping into Margot's Diary, Georgie. Topping stuff. I wish to G.o.d she were young again,-one of us. She'd make things hum. I can't understand why the critics have all thrown so many vitriolic fits about her book and called her the master egotist. Don't they know the meaning of words and isn't this an autobiography? Good Lord, if any woman has a right to be egotistical it's Margot. She did everything well and to my way of thinking she writes better than all the novelists alive. She can sum up a character as well in ten lines as all our verbose young men in ten chapters. In her next book I hope to heaven she'll get her second wind and put a searchlight into Downing Street.

Her poor old bird utterly lost his tail but the public ought to know to what depths of trickery and meanness politics can be carried.-You can make that iron a bit hotter if you like, Lola. Don't be afraid of it.”

Lola gave her a glint of smile and laid the iron back on its stand.

During the process of being dressed, Lady Feo reclined in a sort of barber's chair-not covered with a _peignoir_ or a filmy dressing jacket but in what is called in America a union suit-a one-piece thing of silk with no sleeves and cut like rowing shorts. It became her tremendously well,-cool and calm and perfectly satisfied with herself. She glanced at Lola, who stood quiet and efficient in a neat frock of black alpaca, with her golden hair done closely to her small head, and then winked at Georgie and gave a hitch to her elbow to call attention to the new maid whom she had already broken in and regarded as the latest actor in her private theatricals. Her whole life was a sort of play in which she took the leading part.