Sylvia stood before the looking-glass in the Birmingham lodgings and
made a speech to herself:
"Humph! You look older, my dear. You look more than nineteen and a half.
You're rather glad, though, aren't you, to have finished with the last
three months? You feel degraded, don't you? What's that you say? You
don't feel degraded any more by what you've done now than by what you
did when you were married? You consider the net result of the last three
months has simply been to prove what you'd suspected for a long
time--the wrong you did yourself in marrying Philip Iredale? Wait a
minute; don't go so fast; there's something wrong with your moral sense.
You know perfectly well your contention is impossible; or do you accuse
every woman who marries to have a position and a home of being a
prostitute? Ah, but you didn't marry Philip for either of those reasons,
you say? Yes, you did--you married him to make something like Arbour
End."
Tears welled up in Sylvia's eyes. She thought she had driven Arbour End
from her mind forever.
"Come, come, we don't want any tears. What are you crying for? You knew
when you left Green Lanes that everything which had come into your life
through Philip Iredale must be given up. You were rather proud of your
ruthlessness. Don't spoil it now. That's right, no more tears. You're
feeling a bit _abrutie_, aren't you? My advice to you is to obliterate
the last three months from your imagination. I quite understand that you
suffered a good deal, but novices must be prepared to suffer. In my
opinion you can congratulate yourself on having come through so easily.
Here you are, a jolly little _cabetine_ with a complete contempt for
men. You're not yet twenty; you're not likely to fall in love, for you
must admit that after those three months the word sounds more than
usually idiotic. From what I've seen of you I should say that for the
future you'll be very well able to look after yourself; you might even
become a famous actress. Ah, that makes you smile, eh?"
Sylvia dabbed her face with the powder-puff and went down-stairs to
dinner. Her two companions had not yet begun; for this was the first
meal at which they would all sit down together, and an atmosphere of
politeness hung over life at present. Lily Haden and Dorothy Lonsdale
had joined the "Miss Elsie of Chelsea" company at the same time as
Sylvia, and were making their first appearance on any stage, having
known each other in the dullness of West Kensington. For a fortnight
they had clung together, but, having been given an address for rooms in
Birmingham that required a third person's contribution, they had invited
Sylvia to join them. Lily was a tall, slim girl with very fair, golden
hair, who had an air of romantic mystery that was due to indolence of
mind and body. Dorothy also was fair, with a mass of light-brown hair, a
perfect complexion, profile, and figure, and, what finally gave her a
really distinguished beauty in such a setting, brown eyes instead of
blue. Lily's languorous grace of manner and body was so remarkable that
in a room it was difficult to choose between her and Dorothy, but behind
the footlights there was no comparison; there Dorothy had everybody's
glances, and Lily's less definite features went for nothing.
Each girl was prompt to take Sylvia into her confidence about the other.
Thus from Lily she learned that Dorothy's real name was Norah Caffyn;
that she was the eldest of a very large family; that Lily had known her
at school; that she had been engaged to a journalist who was disapproved
of by her family; that she had offered to break with Wilfred Curlew, if
she were allowed to go on the stage; and that she had taken the name of
Lonsdale from the road where she lived, and Dorothy from the sister next
to her.
"I suppose in the same way as she used to take her dolls?" Sylvia
suggested.
Lily looked embarrassed. She was evidently not sure whether a joke was
intended, and when Sylvia encouraged her to suppose it was, she laughed
a little timidly, being rather doubtful if it were not a pun.
"Her sister was awfully annoyed about it, because she hasn't got a
second name. She's the only one in the family who hasn't."
Lily also told Sylvia something about herself, how her mother had lately
died and how she could not get on with her sister, who had married an
actor and was called Doris. Her mother had been a reciter, and there had
always been lots of theatrical people at their house, so it had been
easy for her to get an introduction to Mr. Walter Keal, who had the
touring rights of all John Richards's great Vanity Theater productions.
From Dorothy Sylvia learned that she had known Lily at school, but not
for long, as Mrs. Haden never paid her daughters' fees; that Mr. Haden
had always been supposed to live in Burmah, but that people who knew
Mrs. Haden declared he had never existed; and finally that Lily had been
"awfully nice" to herself and helped her to get an introduction to Mr.
Walter Keal.
The association of Sylvia with the two girls begun at Birmingham was not
interrupted until the end of the tour. Lily and Dorothy depended upon
it, Lily because Sylvia saved her the trouble of thinking for herself,
Dorothy because she found in Sylvia some one who could deflect all the
difficulties of life on tour and leave her free to occupy herself with
her own prosperity and her own comforts. Dorothy possessed a selfishness
that almost attained to the dignity of ambition, though never quite, as
her conceit would not allow her to state an object in her career, for
fear of failure; her method was invariably to seize the best of any
situation that came along, whether it was a bed, a chair, a potato, or a
man; this method with ordinary good luck would insure success through
life. Lily was too lazy to minister to Dorothy's selfishness; moreover,
she often managed in taking the nearest and easiest to rob Dorothy of
the best.
Sylvia was perfectly aware of their respective characters, but she was
always willing to give herself any amount of trouble to preserve beauty
around her; Lily and Dorothy were not really more troublesome than two
cats would have been; in fact, rather less, because at any rate they
could carry themselves, if not their bags.
Life on tour went its course with the world divided into three
categories--the members of the company, the public expressing its
personality in different audiences, and for the actors saloon-bars and
the drinks they were stood, for the actresses admirers and the presents
they were worth. Sometimes when the saloon-bars and the admirers were
alike unprofitable, the members of the company mixed among themselves
whether in a walk round a new town or at tea in rooms where a landlady
possessed hospitable virtues. Sylvia had a special gift for getting the
best out of landladies, and the men of the company came more often to
tea with herself and her friends than with the other ladies. They came,
indeed, too often to please Dorothy, who disapproved of Lily's
easy-going acceptance of the sort of love that is made because at the
moment there is nothing else to do. She spoke to Sylvia about this, who
agreed with her, but thought that with Lily it was inevitable.
"But not with boys in the company," Dorothy urged, disdainfully. "It
makes us all so cheap. I don't want to put on side, but, after all, we
are a little different from the other girls."
Sylvia found this belief universal in the chorus. She could not think of
any girl who had not at one time or another taken her aside and claimed
for herself, and by the politeness owed to present company for Sylvia,
this "little difference."
"Personally," Sylvia said, "I think we're all much the same. Some of us
drop our aitches, others our p's and q's; some of us sing flat, the rest
sing sharp; and we all look just alike when we're waiting for the train
on Sunday morning."
Nevertheless, with all her prevision of a fate upon Lily's conduct,
Sylvia did speak to her about the way in which she tolerated the
familiarity of the men in the company.
"I suppose you're thinking of Tom," Lily said.
"Tom, Dick, and Harry," Sylvia put in.
"Well. I don't like to seem stuck up," Lily explained. "Tom's always
very nice about carrying my bag and getting me tea when we're
traveling."
"If I promise to look after the bag," Sylvia asked, "will you promise to
discourage Tom?"
"But, my dear, why should you carry my bag when I can get Tom to do it?"
"It bores me to see you and him together," Sylvia explained. "These boys
in the company are all very well, but they aren't really men at all."
"I know," Lily said, eagerly. "That's what I feel. They don't seem real
to me. Of course, I shouldn't let anybody make love to me seriously."
"What do you call serious love-making?"
"Oh, Sylvia, how you do go on asking questions. You know perfectly well
what I mean. You only ask questions to make me feel uncomfortable."
"Just as I might disarrange the cushions of your chair?"
"I know quite well who's been at you to worry me," Lily went on. "I know
it's Dorothy. She's always been used to being the eldest and finding
fault with everybody else. She doesn't really mind Tom's kissing
me--she's perfectly ready to make use of him herself--but she's always
thinking about other people and she's so afraid that some of the men she
goes out with will laugh at his waistcoat. I'm used to actors; she
isn't. I never bother about her. I don't complain about her practising
her singing or talking for hours and hours about whether I think she
looks better with a teardrop or without. Why can't she let me alone?
Nobody ever lets me alone. It's all I've ever asked all my life."
The feeling between Lily and Dorothy was reaching the point of tension.
Sylvia commented on it one evening to Fay Onslow, the oldest member of
the chorus, a fat woman, wise and genial, universally known as Onzie
except by her best boy of the moment, who had to call her Fay. However,
she cost him very little else, and was generally considered to throw
herself away, though, of course, as her friends never failed to add, she
was getting on and could no longer afford to be too particular.
"Well, between you and I, Sylvia, I've often wondered you've kept your
little family together for so long. I've been on the stage now for
twenty-five years. I'm not far off forty, dear. I used to be in
burlesque at the old Frivolity."
"Do you remember Victoria Deane?" Sylvia asked.
"Of course I do. She made a big hit and then got married and left the
stage. A sweetly pretty little thing, she was. But, as I was saying,
dear, in all my experience I never knew two fair girls get through a
tour together without falling out, two girls naturally fair, that is,
and you mark my words, Lily Haden and Dolly Lonsdale will have a row."
Sylvia was anxious to avert this, because she would have found it hard
to choose between their rival claims upon her. She was fonder of Lily,
but she was very fond of Dorothy, and she believed that Dorothy might
attain real success in her profession. It seemed more worth while to
take trouble over Dorothy; yet something warned her that an expense of
devotion in that direction would ultimately be, from a selfish point of
view, wasted. Dorothy would never consider affection where advancement
was concerned; yet was it not just this quality in her that she admired?
There would certainly be an unusual exhilaration in standing behind
Dorothy and helping her to rise and rise, whereas with Lily the best
that could be expected was to prevent her falling infinitely low.
"How I've changed since I left Philip," she said to herself. "I seem to
have lost myself somehow and to have transferred all my interest in life
to other people. I suppose it won't last. God forbid I should become a
problem to myself like a woman in a damned novel. Down with
introspection, though, Heaven knows, observation in 'Miss Elsie of
Chelsea' is not a profitable pastime."
Sylvia bought an eye-glass next day, and though all agreed with one
another in private that it was an affectation, everybody assured her
that she was a girl who could wear an eye-glass with advantage. Lily
thought the cord must be rather a bore.
"It's symbolic," Sylvia declared to the dressing-room.
"I think I'll have my eyes looked at in Sheffield," said Onzie. "There's
a doctor there who's very good to pros. I often feel my eyes are
getting a bit funny. It may be the same as Sylvia's got."
The tour was coming to an end; the last three nights would be played at
Oxford, to which everybody looked forward. All the girls who had been to
Oxford before told wonderful tales of the pleasures that might be
anticipated. Even some of the men were heard to speculate if such or
such a friend were still there, which annoyed those who could not even
boast of having had a friend there two years ago. The jealous ones
revenged themselves by criticizing the theatrical manners of the
undergraduate, especially upon the last night of a musical comedy. One
heard a great deal of talk, they said, about a college career, but
personally and without offense to anybody present who had friends at
college, they considered that a college career in nine cases out of ten
meant rowdiness and a habit of thinking oneself better than other
people.
Sylvia, Lily, and Dorothy had rooms in Eden Square, which was the
recognized domain of theatrical companies playing in Oxford. Numerous
invitations to lunch and tea were received, and Sylvia, who had formed a
preconceived idea of Oxford based upon Philip, was astonished how little
the undergraduates she met resembled him. Dorothy managed with her usual
instinct for the best to secure as an admirer Lord Clarehaven, or, as
the other girls preferred to call him with a nicer formality, the Earl
of Clarehaven. He invited her with a friend to lunch at Christ Church on
the last day. Dorothy naturally chose Sylvia, and, as Lily was already
engaged elsewhere, Sylvia accepted. Later in the afternoon Dorothy
proposed that the young men should come back and have tea in Eden
Square, and Sylvia divined Dorothy's intention of proving to these young
men that the actress in her own home would be as capable of maintaining
propriety as she had been at lunch.
"We'll buy the cakes on the way," said Dorothy, which was another
example of her infallible instinct for the best and the most economical.
Loaded with éclairs, meringues, and chocolates, Dorothy, Sylvia, and
their four guests reached Eden Square.
"You'll have to excuse the general untidiness," Dorothy said, with an
affected little laugh, flinging open the door of the sitting-room. She
would probably have chosen another word for the picture of Lily sitting
on Tom's knee in the worn leather-backed arm-chair if she had entered
first: unfortunately, Lord Clarehaven was accorded that privilege, and
the damage was done. Sylvia quickly introduced everybody, and nobody
could have complained of the way in which the undergraduates sailed over
an awkward situation, nor could much have been urged against Tom, for he
left immediately. As for Lily, she was a great success with the young
men and seemed quite undisturbed by the turn of events.
As soon as the three girls were alone together, Dorothy broke out:
"I hope you don't think I'll ever live with you again after that
disgusting exhibition. I suppose you think just because you gave me an
introduction that you can do what you like. I don't know what Sylvia
thinks of you, but I can tell you what I think. You make me feel
absolutely sick. That beastly chorus-boy! The idea of letting anybody
like that even look at you. Thank Heaven, the tour's over. I'm going
down to the theater. I can't stay in this room. It makes me blush to
think of it. I'll take jolly good care who I live with in future."
Then suddenly, to Sylvia's immense astonishment, Dorothy slapped Lily's
face. What torments of mortification must be raging in that small soul
to provoke such an unlady-like outburst!
"I should hit her back if I were you, my lass," Sylvia advised, putting
up her eye-glass for the fray; but Lily began to cry and Dorothy
flounced out of the room.
Sylvia bent over her in consolation, though her sense of justice made
her partly excuse Dorothy's rage.
"How did I know she would bring her beastly men back to tea? She only
did it to brag about having a lord to our digs. After all, they're just
as much mine as hers. I was sorry for Tom. He doesn't know anybody in
Oxford, and he felt out of it with all the other boys going out. He
asked me if I was going to turn him down because I'd got such fine
friends. I was sorry for him, Sylvia, and so I asked him to tea. I don't
see why Dorothy should turn round and say nasty things to me. I've
always been decent to her. Oh, Sylvia, you don't know how lonely I feel
sometimes."
This appeal was too much for Sylvia, who clasped Lily to her and let her
sob forth her griefs upon her shoulder.
"Sylvia, I've got nobody. I hate my sister Doris. Mother's dead.
Everybody ran her down, but she had a terrible life. Father used to take
drugs, and then he stole and was put in prison. People used to say
mother wasn't married, but she was. Only the truth was so terrible, she
could never explain. You don't know how she worked. She brought up Doris
and me entirely. She used to recite, and she used to be always hard up.
She died of heart failure, and that comes from worry. Nobody understands
me. I don't know what will become of me."
"My dear," Sylvia said, "you know I'm your pal."
"Oh, Sylvia, you're a darling! I'd do anything for you."
"Even carry your own bag at the station to-morrow?"
"No, don't tease me," Lily begged. "If you won't tease me, I'll do
anything."
That evening Mr. Keal, with the mighty Mr. Richards himself, came up
from London to see the show. The members of the chorus were much
agitated. It could only mean that girls were to be chosen for the Vanity
production in the autumn. Every one of them put on rather more make-up
than usual, acted hard all the time she was on the stage, and tried to
study Mr. Richards's face from the wings.
"You and I are one of the 'also rans,'" Sylvia told Lily. "The great man
eyed me with positive dislike."
In the end it was Dorothy Lonsdale who was engaged for the Vanity: she
was so much elated that she was reconciled with Lily and told everybody
in the dressing-room that she had met a cousin at Oxford, Arthur
Lonsdale, Lord Cleveden's son.
"Which side of the road are you related to him?" Sylvia asked. Dorothy
blushed, but she pretended not to understand what Sylvia meant, and said
quite calmly that it was on her mother's side. She parted with Sylvia
and Lily very cordially at Paddington, but she did not invite either of
them to come and see her at Lonsdale Road.
Sylvia and Lily stayed together at Mrs. Gowndry's in Finborough Road,
for it happened that the final negotiations for Sylvia's divorce from
Philip were being concluded and she took pleasure in addressing her
communications from the house where she had been living when he first
met her. Philip was very anxious to make her an allowance, but she
declined it; her case was undefended. Lily and she managed to get an
engagement in another touring company, which opened in August somewhere
on the south coast. About this time Sylvia read in a paper that Jimmy
Monkley had been sentenced to three years' penal servitude for fraud,
and by an odd coincidence in the same paper she read of the decree nisi
made absolute that set Philip and herself free. Old associations seemed
to be getting wound up. Unfortunately, the new ones were not promising;
no duller collection of people had surely ever been gathered together
than the company in which she was working at present. Not only was the
company tiresome, but Sylvia and Lily failed to meet anywhere on the
tour one amusing person. To be sure, Lily thought that Sylvia was too
critical, and therefore so alarming that several "nice boys" were
discouraged too early in their acquaintanceship for a final judgment to
be passed upon them.
"The trouble is," said Sylvia, "that at this rate we shall never make
our fortunes. I stipulate that, if we adopt a gay life, it really will
be a gay life. I don't want to have soul-spasms and internal wrestles
merely for the sake of being bored."
Sylvia tried to produce Lily as a dancer; for a week or two they worked
hard at imitations of the classical school, but very soon they both grew
tired of it.
"The nearest we shall ever get to jingling our money at this game,"
Sylvia said, "is jingling our landlady's ornaments on the mantelpiece.
Lily, I think we're not meant for the stage. And yet, if I could only
find my line, I believe.... I believe.... Oh, well, I can't, and so
there's an end of it. But look here, winter's coming on. We've got
nothing to wear. We haven't saved a penny. Ruin stares us in the face.
Say something, Lily; do say something, or I shall scream."
"I don't think we ought to have eaten those plums at dinner. They
weren't really ripe," Lily said.
"Well, anyhow, that solves the problem of the moment. Put your things
on. You'd better come out and walk them off."
They were playing in Eastbourne that week, where a sudden hot spell had
prolonged the season farther into September than usual; a new company of
entertainers known as "The Highwaymen" was attracting audiences almost
as large as in the prime of summer. Sylvia and Lily paused to watch them
from the tamarisks below the Marina.
Suddenly Sylvia gave an exclamation.
"I do believe that's Claude Raglan who's singing now. Do you remember,
Lily, I told you about the Pink Pierrots? I'm sure it is."
Presently the singer came round with the bag and a packet of his picture
post-cards. Sylvia asked if he had a photograph of Claude Raglan. When
he produced one she dug him in the ribs, and cried:
"Claudie, you consumptive ass, don't you recognize me? Sylvia."
He was delighted to see her again, and willingly accepted an invitation
to supper after the show, if he might bring a friend with him.
"Jack Airdale--an awfully decent fellow. Quite a good voice, too, though
I think from the point of view of the show it's a mistake to have a high
barytone when they've already got a tenor. However, he does a good deal
of accompanying. In fact, he's a much better accompanist than he is
singer."
"I suppose you've got more girls than ever in love with you, now you
wear a mask?" said Sylvia.
Claude seemed doubtful whether to take this remark as a compliment to
his voice or as an insult to his face. Finally he took it as a joke and
laughed.
"Just the same, I see," he said. "Always chaffing a fellow."
Claude Raglan and Jack Airdale came to supper in due course. Sylvia
liked Jack; he was a round-faced young man in the early twenties, with
longish light hair that flopped all over his face when he became
excited. Sylvia and he were good friends immediately and made a great
deal of noise over supper, while Claude and Lily looked at each other.
"How's the consumption, Claudie?" Sylvia asked.
Claude sighed with a soulful glance at Lily's delicate form.
"Don't imagine she's sympathizing with you," Sylvia cried. "She's only
thinking about plums."
"He's grown out of it," Airdale said. "Look at the length of his neck."
"I have to wear these high collars. My throat...." Claude began.
"Oh, shut up with your ailments," Sylvia interrupted.
"Hear, hear," Airdale shouted. "Down with ailments," and he threw a
cushion at Claude.
"I wish you wouldn't behave like a clown," said Claude, smoothing his
ruffled hair and looking to see if Lily was joining in the laugh against
him.
Presently the conversation turned upon the prospects of the two girls
for next winter, about which Sylvia was very pessimistic.
"Why don't we join together and run a street show--Pierrot, Pierrette,
Harlequin, and Columbine?" Airdale suggested. "I'll swear there's money
in it."
"About enough to pay for our coffins," said Claude. "Sing out of doors
in the winter? My dear Jack, you're mad."
Sylvia thought the idea was splendid, and had sketched out Lily's
Columbine dress before Lily herself had realized that the conversation
had taken a twist.
"Light-blue crêpe de Chine with bunches of cornflowers for Columbine.
Pierrette in dark blue with bunches of forget-me-nots, Pierrot in light
blue. Silver and dark-blue lozenges for Harlequin."
"Paregoric lozenges would suit Claude better," said Airdale. "O
Pagliacci! Can't you hear him? No, joking apart, I think it would be a
great effort. We sha'n't have to sing much outside. We shall get invited
into people's houses."
"Shall we?" Claude muttered.
"And if the show goes," Airdale went on, "we might vary our costumes.
For instance, we might be Bacchanals in pink fleshings and vine leaves."
"Vine leaves," Claude ejaculated. "Vine Street more likely."
"Don't laugh, old boy, with that lung of yours," said Airdale,
earnestly.
In the end, before the company left Eastbourne, it was decided,
notwithstanding Claude's lugubrious prophecies, to launch the
enterprise; when the tour broke up in December Sylvia had made dresses
both for Lily and for herself as she had first planned them with an eye
only for what became Lily. Claude's hypochondria was appeased by letting
him wear a big patchwork cloak over his harlequin's dress in which white
lozenges had been substituted for silver ones, owing to lack of money.
They hired a small piano very much like the one that belonged to the
Pink Pierrots, and on Christmas Eve they set out from Finborough Road,
where Claude and Jack had rooms near Mrs. Gowndry's. They came into
collision with a party of carol-singers who seemed to resent their
profane competition, and, much to Jack Airdale's disappointment, they
were not invited into a single house; the money taken after three hours
of wandering music was one shilling and fivepence in coppers.
"Never mind," said Jack. "We aren't known yet. It's a pity we didn't
start singing last Christmas Eve. We should have had more engagements
than we should have known what to do with this year."
"We must build up the show for next year," Sylvia agreed,
enthusiastically.
"I shall sing the 'Lost Chord' next year," Claude answered. "They may
let me in, if I worry them outside heaven's gates, to hear that last
Amen."
Jack and Sylvia were justified in their optimism, for gradually the
Carnival Quartet, as they called themselves, became known in South
Kensington, and they began to get engagements to appear in other parts
of London. Jack taught Sylvia to vamp well enough on the guitar to
accompany herself in duets with him; Claude looked handsome in his
harlequin's dress, which prosperity had at last endowed with silver
lozenges; Lily danced actively enough for the drawing-rooms in which
they performed; Sylvia, inspired by the romantic exterior of herself and
her companions, invented a mime to the music of Schumann's "Carnival"
which Jack Airdale played, or, as Claude said, maltreated.
The Quartet showed signs of increasing vitality with the approach of
spring, and there was no need to think any more of touring in musical
comedy, which was a relief to Sylvia. When summer came, they agreed to
keep together and work the South Coast.
However, all these plans came suddenly to nothing, because one misty
night early in March Harlequin and Columbine lost Pierrot and Pierrette
on the way home from a party in Chelsea; a brief note from Harlequin to
Pierrot, which he found when he got home, indicated that the loss should
be considered permanent.
This treachery was a shock to Sylvia, and she was horrified at herself
for feeling it so deeply. Ever since that day in Oxford when Lily had
sobbed out her griefs, Sylvia had concentrated upon her all the capacity
for affection which had begun to blossom during the time she was with
Philip and which had been cut off ruthlessly with everything else that
belonged to life with him. She knew that she should have foreseen the
possibility, nay the probability, of this happening, but she had charmed
herself with the romantic setting of their musical adventure and let all
else go.
"I'm awfully sorry, Sylvia," said Jack; "I ought to have kept a better
lookout on Claude."
"It's not your fault, old son. But, O God! why can't four people stay
friends without muddling everything up with this accursed love?"
Jack was sympathetic, but it was useless to confide in him her feeling
for Lily; he would never understand. She would seem to him so little
worth while; for him the behavior of such a one meant less than the
breaking of a porcelain figure.
"It did seem worth while," Sylvia said to herself, that night, "to keep
that frail and lovely thing from this. It was my fault, of course, for I
knew both Lily and Claude through and through. Yet what does it matter?
What a fool I am. It was absurd of me to imagine we could go on forever
as we were. I don't really mind about Lily; I'm angry because my conceit
has been wounded. It serves me right. But that dirty little actor won't
appreciate her. He's probably sick of her easiness already. Oh, why the
hell am I not a man?"
Presently, however, Sylvia's mood of indignation burned itself out; she
began to attribute the elopement of Claude and Lily to the characters
they had assumed of Harlequin and Columbine, and to regard the whole
affair as a scene from a play which must not be taken more deeply to
heart than with the pensive melancholy that succeeds the fall of the
curtain on mimic emotions. After all, what had Lily been to her more
than a puppet whose actions she had always controlled for her pleasure
until she was stolen from her? Without Lily she was once more at a loose
end; there was the whole history of her sorrow.
"I can't think what they wanted to run away for," said Jack. Sylvia
fancied the flight was the compliment both Harlequin and Columbine had
paid to her authority.
"I don't find you so alarming," he said.
"No, old son, because you and I have always regarded the Quartet from a
strictly professional point of view, and consequently each other.
Meanwhile the poor old Quartet is done in. We two can't sustain a
program alone."
Airdale gloomily assented, but thought it would be well to continue for
a week or so, in case Claude and Lily came back.
"I notice you take it for granted that I'll be willing to continue
busking with them," Sylvia said.
That evening Airdale and she went out as usual; but the loss of the
other two seemed somehow to have robbed the entertainment of its
romantic distinction, and Sylvia was dismayed to find with what a
shameful timidity she now took herself and her guitar into saloon-bars;
she felt like a beggar and was humiliated by Jack's apologetic manner,
and still more by her own instinctive support of such cringing to the
benevolence of potmen and barmaids.
One evening, after about a week of these distasteful peregrinations, the
two mountebanks came out of a public house in Fulham Road where they
had been forced to endure a more than usually intolerable patronage.
Sylvia vowed she would not perform again under such conditions, and they
turned up Tinderbox Lane to wander home. This thoroughfare, only used by
pedestrians, was very still, and trees planted down the middle of the
pavement gave to the mild March evening an effluence of spring. Sylvia
began to strum upon her guitar the tune that Arthur Madden and she sang
together from the windows at Hampstead on the night she met him first;
her companion soon caught hold of the air, and they strolled slowly
along, dreaming, she looking downward of the past, he of the future with
his eyes fixed on the chimneys of the high flats that encircled the
little houses and long gardens of Tinderbox Lane. They were passing a
wall on their right in which numbered doors were set at intervals. From
one of these a tall figure emerged and stopped a moment to say good-by
to somebody standing in the entrance. The two musicians with a
simultaneous instinct for an audience that might appreciate them stopped
and addressed their song to the parting pair, a tall old gentleman with
drooping gray whiskers, very much muffled up, and an exceedingly stout
woman of ripe middle age.
"Bravo!" said the old gentleman, in a tremulous voice, as he tapped his
cane on the pavement. "Polly, this is devilish appropriate. By gad! it
makes me feel inclined to dance again, Polly," and the old gentleman
forthwith postured with his thin legs like a cardboard antic at the end
of a string. The fat woman standing in the doorway came out into the
lamplight, and clasping her hands in alarm, begged him not to take cold,
but the old gentleman would not stop until Polly had made a pretense of
dancing a few steps with him, after which he again piped, "Bravo," vowed
he must have a whisky, and invited Sylvia and Jack to come inside and
join them.
"Dashwood is my name, Major-General Dashwood, and this is Mrs.
Gainsborough."
"Come along," said Mrs. Gainsborough. "The captain--"
"She will call me Captain," said the general, with a chuckle. "Obstinate
gal! Knew me first when I was a captain, thirty-six years ago, and has
never called me anything since. What a woman, though!"
"He's very gay to-night. We've been celebrating our anniversary," Mrs.
Gainsborough explained, while the four of them walked along a gravel
path toward a small square creeper-covered house at the end of a very
long garden.
"We met first at the Argyll Rooms in March, 1867, and in September,
1869, Mulberry Cottage was finished. I planted those mulberry-trees
myself, and they'll outlive us both," said the general.
"Now don't let's have any more dismals," Mrs. Gainsborough begged.
"We've had quite enough to-night, talking over old times."
Mulberry Cottage was very comfortable inside, full of mid-Victorian
furniture and ornaments that suited its owner, who, Sylvia now perceived
by the orange lamplight, was even fatter than she had seemed at first.
Her hair, worn in a chignon, was black, her face was rosy and large,
almost monumental, with a plinth of chins.
The general so much enjoyed having a fresh audience for his tales, and
sat so long over the whisky, that Mrs. Gainsborough became worried.
"Bob, you ought to go. You know I don't like to argue before strangers,
but your sister will be getting anxious. Miss Dashwood's quite alone,"
she explained to her guests. "I wonder if you'd mind walking back with
him?" she whispered to Sylvia. "He lives in Redcliffe Gardens. That's
close to you, isn't it?"
"If we can have music all the way, by gad! of course," said the general,
standing up so straight that Sylvia was afraid he would bump his head on
the ceiling.
"Now, Bob dear, don't get too excited and do keep your muffler well
wrapped round your throat."
The general insisted on having one more glass for the sake of old times,
and there was a short delay in the garden, because he stuck his cane
fast in the ground to show the size of the mulberry-trees when he
planted them, but ultimately they said good night to Mrs. Gainsborough,
upon whom Sylvia promised to call next day, and set out for Redcliffe
Gardens to the sound of guitars.
General Dashwood turned round from time to time to shake his cane at
passers-by that presumed to stare at the unusual sight of an old
gentleman, respectable in his dress and demeanor, escorted down Fulham
Road by two musicians.
"Do you see anything so damned odd in our appearance?" he asked Sylvia.
"Nothing at all," she assured him.
"Sensible gal! I've a very good mind to knock down the next scoundrel
who stares at us."
Presently the general, on whom the fresh air was having an effect, took
Sylvia's arm and grew confidential.
"Go on playing," he commanded Jack Airdale. "I'm only talking business.
The fact is," he said to Sylvia, "I'm worried about Polly. Hope I shall
live another twenty years, but fact is, my dear, I've never really got
over that wound of mine at Balaclava. Damme! I've never been the same
man since."
Sylvia wondered what he could have been before.
"Naturally she's well provided for. Bob Dashwood always knew how to
treat a woman. No wife, no children, you understand me? But it's the
loneliness. She ought to have somebody with her. She's a wonderful
woman, and she was a handsome gal. Damme! she's still handsome--what?
Fifty-five you know. By gad, yes. And I'm seventy. But it's the
loneliness. Ah, dear, if the gods had been kind; but then she'd have
probably been married by now."
The general blew his nose, sighed, and shook his head. Sylvia asked
tenderly how long the daughter had lived.
"Never lived at all," said the general, stopping dead and opening his
eyes very wide, as he looked at Sylvia. "Never was born. Never was going
to be born. Hale and hearty, but too late now, damme! I've taken a fancy
to you. Sensible gal! Damned sensible. Why don't you go and live with
Polly?"
In order to give Sylvia time to reflect upon her answer, the general
skipped along for a moment to the tune that Jack was playing.
"Nothing between you and him?" he asked, presently, indicating Jack with
his cane.
Sylvia shook her head.
"Thought not. Very well, then, why don't you go and live with Polly?
Give you time to look round a bit. Understand what you feel about
playing for your bread and butter like this. Finest thing in the world
music, if you haven't got to do it. Go and see Polly to-morrow. I spoke
to her about it to-night. She'll be delighted. So shall I. Here we are
in Redcliffe Gardens. Damned big house and only myself and my sister to
live in it. Live there like two needles in a haystack. Won't ask you in.
Damned inhospitable, but no good because I shall have to go to bed at
once. Perhaps you wouldn't mind pressing the bell? Left my latch-key in
me sister's work-basket."
The door opened, and the general, after bidding Sylvia and Jack a
courteous good night, marched up his front-door steps with as much
martial rigidity as he could command.
On the way back to Finborough Road, Sylvia, who had been attracted to
the general's suggestion, postponed raising the question with Jack by
telling him about her adventure in Redcliffe Gardens when she threw the
bag of chestnuts through the window. She did not think it fair, however,
to make any other arrangement without letting him know, and before she
went to see Mrs. Gainsborough the next day she announced her idea and
asked him if he would be much hurt by her backing out of the busking.
"My dear girl, of course not," said Jack. "As a matter of fact, I've had
rather a decent offer to tour in a show through the East. I should
rather like to see India and all that. I didn't say anything about it,
because I didn't want to let you down. However, if you're all right, I'm
all right."
Mrs. Gainsborough by daylight appealed to Sylvia as much as ever. She
told her what the general had said, and Mrs. Gainsborough begged her to
come that very afternoon.
"The only thing is," Sylvia objected, "I've got a friend, a girl, who's
away at present, and she might want to go on living with me."
"Let her come too," Mrs. Gainsborough cried. "The more the merrier. Good
Land! What a set-out we shall have. The captain won't know himself. He's
very fond of me, you know. But it would be more jolly for him to have
some youngsters about. He's that young. Upon my word, you'd think he was
a boy. And he's always the same. Oh, dearie me! the times we've had,
you'd hardly believe. Life with him was a regular circus."
So it was arranged that Sylvia should come at once to live with Mrs.
Gainsborough in Tinderbox Lane, and Jack went off to the East.
The general used to visit them nearly every afternoon, but never in the
evening.
"Depend upon it, Sylvia," Mrs. Gainsborough said, "he got into rare hot
water with his sister the other night. Of course it was an exception,
being our anniversary, and I dare say next March, if we're all spared,
he'll be allowed another evening. It's a great pity, though, that we
didn't meet first in June. So much more seasonable for jollifications.
But there, he was young and never looked forward to being old."
The general was not spared for another anniversary. Scarcely a month
after Sylvia had gone to live with Mrs. Gainsborough, he died very
quietly in the night. His sister came herself to break the news, a frail
old lady who seemed very near to joining her brother upon the longest
journey.
"She'll never be able to keep away from him," Mrs. Gainsborough sobbed.
"She'll worry and fret herself for fear he might catch cold in his
coffin. And look at me! As healthy and rosy as a great radish!"
The etiquette of the funeral caused Mrs. Gainsborough considerable
perplexity.
"Now tell me, Sylvia, ought I or ought I not to wear a widow's veil?
Miss Dashwood inviting me in that friendly way, I do want to show that I
appreciate her kindness. I know that strictly we weren't married. I dare
say nowadays it would be different, but people was much more
old-fashioned about marrying ballet-girls when I was young. Still, it
doesn't seem hardly decent for me to go gallivanting to his funeral in
me black watered silk, the same as if I were going to the upper boxes of
a theater with Mrs. Marsham or Mrs. Beardmore."
Sylvia told Mrs. Gainsborough that in her opinion a widow's cap at the
general's funeral would be like the dash of mauve at the wedding in the
story. She suggested the proper thing to do would be to buy a new black
dress unprofaned by visits to the upper boxes.
"If I can get such an out size in the time," Mrs. Gainsborough sighed,
"which is highly doubtful."
However, the new dress was obtained, and Mrs. Gainsborough went off to
the funeral at Brompton.
"On, it was a beautiful ceremony," she sobbed, when she got home. "And
really Miss Dashwood, well, she couldn't have been nicer. Oh, my poor
dear captain, if only all the clergyman said was true. And yet I should
feel more comfortable somehow if it wasn't. Though I suppose if it was
true there'd be no objection to our meeting in heaven as friends only.
Dear me, it all sounded so real when I heard the clergyman talking about
it. Just as if he was going up in a lift, as you might say. So natural
it sounded. 'A gallant soldier,' he said, 'a veteran of the Crimea.' So
he was gallant, the dear captain. You should have seen him lay out two
roughs who tried to snatch me watch and chain once at the Epsom Derby.
He was a gentleman, too. I'm sure nobody ever treated any woman kinder
than he treated me. Seventy years old he was. Captain Bob Dashwood of
the Seventeenth Hussars. I can see him now as he used to be. He liked to
come stamping up the garden. Oh, he was a stamper, and 'Polly,' he
hollered out, 'get on your frills. Here's Dick Avon--the Markiss of Avon
_that_ was' (oh, he was a wild thing) 'and Jenny Ward' (you know, she
threw herself off Westminster Bridge and caused such a stir in Jubilee
year). People talked a lot about it at the time. I remember we drove to
the Star and Garter at Richmond that day--a lovely June day it was--and
caused quite a sensation, because we all looked so smart. Oh, my Bob, my
Bob, it only seems yesterday."
Sylvia consoled Mrs. Gainsborough and rejoiced in her assurance that she
did not know what she should have done.
"Fancy him thinking about me being so lonely and wanting you to come and
live with me. Depend upon it he knew he was going to die all of a
sudden," said Mrs. Gainsborough. "Oh, there's no doubt he was clever
enough to have been a doctor. Only of course with his family he had to
be a soldier."
Sylvia mostly spent these spring days in the garden with Mrs.
Gainsborough, listening to her tales about the past and helping her to
overlook the labors of the jobbing gardener who came in twice a week.
Her landlady or hostess (for the exact relation was not yet determined)
was very strict in this regard, because her father had been a nursery
gardener and she insisted upon a peculiar knowledge of the various ways
in which horticultural obligations could be avoided. When Sylvia raised
the question of her status at Mulberry Cottage, Mrs. Gainsborough always
begged her not to be in a hurry to settle anything; later on, when
Sylvia was able to earn some money, she should pay for her board, but
payment for her lodging, so long as Mrs. Gainsborough was alive and the
house was not burned to the ground, was never to be mentioned. That was
certainly the captain's intention and it must be respected.
Sylvia often went to see Mrs. Gowndry in Finborough Road in case there
should be news of Lily. Her old landlady was always good enough to say
that she missed her, and in her broken-up existence the affection even
of Mrs. Gowndry was very grateful.
"I've told me old man to keep a good lookout for her," said Mrs.
Gowndry.
"He's hardly likely to meet her at his work," Sylvia said.
"Certainly not. No. But he often goes up to get a breath of
air--well--it isn't to be expected that he wouldn't. I often say to him
when he comes home a bit grumblified that his profession is as bad as a
miner's, and _they_ only does eight hours, whereas in his lavatory they
does twelve. Too long, too long, and it must be fidgety work, with
people bobbing in and out all the time and always in a hurry, as you
might say. Of course now and again you get a lodger who makes himself
unpleasant, but, year in year out, looking after lodgers is a more
peaceful sort of a life than looking after a lavatory. Don't you be
afraid, Miss Scarlett. If ever a letter comes for you our Tommy shall
bring it straight round, and he's a boy as can be trusted not to lose
anything he's given. You wouldn't lose the pretty lady's letter, would
you, Tommy? You never lose nothing, do you?"
"I lost a acid-drop once."
"There, fancy him remembering. That's a hit for his ma, that is. He'd
only half sucked this here acid-drop and laid it aside to finish sucking
it when he went up to bed, and I must have swept it up, not thinking
what it was. Fancy him remembering. He don't talk much, but he's a
artful one."
Tommy had a bagful of acid-drops soon after this, for he brought a
letter to Sylvia from Lily:
DEAR SYLVIA,--I suppose you're awfully angry with me, but Claude
went on tour a month ago, and I hate being alone. I wonder if this
will find you. I'm staying in rotten rooms in Camden Town. 14
Winchester Terrace. Send me a card if you're in London.
Loving, LILY.
Sylvia immediately went over to Camden Town and brought Lily away from
the rooms, which were indeed "rotten." When she had installed her at
Mulberry Cottage she worked herself up to having a clear understanding
with Lily, but when it came to the point she felt it was useless to
scold her except in fun, as a child scolds her doll. She did, however,
treat her henceforth in what Mrs. Gainsborough called a "highly
dictatorial way." Sylvia thought she could give Lily the appearance of
moral or immoral energy, however impossible it might be to give her the
reality. With this end in view she made Lily's will entirely subordinate
to her own, which was not difficult. The affection that Sylvia now had
for her was not so much tender as careful, the affection one might feel
for a bicycle rather than for a horse. She was always brutally frank
with herself about their relation to each other, and because she never
congratulated herself upon her kindness she was able to sustain her
affection.
"There is nothing so fickle as a virtuous impulse," Sylvia declared to
herself. "It's a kind of moral usury which is always looking for a
return on the investment. The moment the object fails to pay an
exorbitant interest in gratitude, the impulse to speculate withers up.
The lowest circle in hell should be reserved for people who try to help
others and cannot understand why their kindness is not appreciated.
Really that was Philip's trouble. He never got over being hurt that I
didn't perpetually remind him of his splendid behavior toward me. I
suppose I'm damned inhuman. Well, well, I couldn't have stood those
three months after I left him if I hadn't been."
The affair between Lily and Claude Raglan was not much discussed. He
had, it seemed, only left her because his career was at stake; he had
received a good offer and she had not wished to detain him.
"But is it over between you?" Sylvia demanded.
"Yes, of course, it's over--at any rate, for a long time to come," Lily
answered. "He cried when he left me. He really was a nice boy. If he
lives, he thinks he will be a success--a real success. He introduced me
to a lot of nice boys."
"That was rash of him," Sylvia laughed. "Were they as nice as the
lodgings he introduced you to?"
"No, don't laugh at him. He couldn't afford anything else."
"But why in Heaven's name, if you wanted to play around together, had
you got to leave Finborough Road?"
Lily blushed faintly. "You won't be angry if I tell you?"
Sylvia shook her head.
"Claude said he couldn't bear the idea that you were looking at us. He
said it spoiled everything."
"What did he think I was going to do?" Sylvia snapped. "Put pepper on
the hymeneal pillow?"
"You said you wouldn't be angry."
"I'm not."
"Well, don't use long words, because it makes me think you are."
Soon after Lily came to Tinderbox Lane, Sylvia met Dorothy Lonsdale with
a very lovely dark girl called Olive Fanshawe, a fellow-member of the
Vanity chorus. Dorothy was glad to see her, principally, Sylvia thought,
because she was able to talk about lunch at Romano's and supper at the
Savoy.
"Look here," Sylvia said. "A little less of the Queen of Sheba, if you
don't mind. Don't forget I'm one of the blokes as is glad to smell the
gratings outside a baker's."
Miss Fanshawe laughed, and Sylvia looked at her quickly, wondering if
she were worth while.
Dorothy was concerned to hear she was still with Lily. "That dreadful
girl," she simpered.
"Oh, go to hell," said Sylvia, sharply, and walked off.
Next day a note came from Dorothy to invite her and Lily to tea at the
flat she shared with Olive.
"Wonderful how attractive rudeness is," Sylvia commented.
"Oh, do let's go. Look, she lives in Half Moon Street," Lily said.
"And a damned good address for the demi-monde," Sylvia added.
However, the tea-party was definitely a success, and for the rest of the
summer Sylvia and Lily spent a lot of time on the river with what Sylvia
called the semicircle of intimate friends they had brought away from
Half Moon Street. She grew very fond of Olive Fanshawe and warned her
against her romantic adoration of Dorothy.
"But you're just as romantic over Lily," Olive argued.
"Not a single illusion left, my dear," Sylvia assured her. "Besides, I
should never compare Lily with Dorothy. Dorothy is more beautiful, more
ambitious, more mercenary. She'll probably marry a lord. She's acquired
the art of getting a lot for nothing to a perfection that could only be
matched by a politician or a girl with the same brown eyes in the same
glory of light-brown hair. And when it suits her she'll go back on her
word just as gracefully, and sell her best friend as readily as a
politician will sell his country."
"You're very down on politicians. I think there's something so romantic
about them," Olive declared. "Young politicians, of course."
"My dear, you'd think a Bradshaw romantic."
"It is sometimes," said Olive.
"Well, I know two young politicians," Sylvia continued. "A Liberal and a
Conservative. They both spend their whole time in hoping I sha'n't
suggest walking down Bond Street with them, the Liberal because I may
see a frock and the Conservative because he may meet a friend. They
both make love to me as if they were addressing their future
constituents, with a mixture of flattery, condescension, and best
clothes; but they reserve all their affection for the constituency. As I
tell them, if they'd fondle the constituency and nurse me, I should
endure their company more easily. Unhappily, they both think I'm
intelligent, and a man who admires a woman's intelligence is like a
woman who admires her friend's looking-glass--each one is granting an
audience to himself."
"At any rate," said Olive, "you've managed to make yourself quite a
mystery. All the men we know are puzzled by you."
"Tell them, my dear, I'm quite simple. I represent the original
conception of the Hetæra, a companion. I don't want to be made love to,
and every man who makes love to me I dislike. If I ever do fall in love,
I'll be a man's slave. Of that I'm sure. So don't utter dark warnings,
for I've warned myself already. I do want a certain number of
things--nice dresses, because I owe them to myself, good books,
and--well, really, I think that's all. In return for the dresses and the
books--I suppose one ought to add an occasional fiver just to show
there's no ill feeling about preferring to sleep in my own room--in
return for very little. I'm ready to talk, walk, laugh, sing, dance,
tell incomparably bawdy stories, and, what is after all the most
valuable return of all, I'm ready to sit perfectly still and let myself
be bored to death while giving him an idea that I'm listening
intelligently. Of course, sometimes I do listen intelligently without
being bored. In that case I let him off with books only."
"You really are an extraordinary girl," said Olive.
"You, on the other hand, my dear," Sylvia went on, "always give every
man the hope that if he's wise and tender, and of course
lavish--ultimately all men believe in the pocket--he will be able to cry
Open Sesame to the mysterious treasure of romantic love that he discerns
in your dark eyes, in your caressing voice, and in your fervid
aspirations. In the end you'll give it all to a curly-headed actor and
live happily ever afterward at Ravenscourt Park. Farewell to Coriolanus
in his smart waistcoat; farewell to Julius Cæsar and his amber
cigarette-holder; farewell to every nincompoop with a top-hat as bright
as a halo; farewell incidentally to Dolly Lonsdale, who'll discover that
Ravenscourt Park is too difficult for the chauffeur to find."
"Oh, Sylvia, shut up!" Olive said. "I believe you drank too much
champagne at lunch."
"I'm glad you reminded me," Sylvia cried. "By Jove! I'd forgotten the
fizz. That's where we all meet on common ground--or rather, I should say
in common liquid. It sounds like mixed bathing. It is a kind of mixed
bathing, after all. You're quite right, Olive, whatever our different
tastes in men, clothes, and behavior, we all must have champagne.
Champagne is a bloody sight thicker than water, as the prodigal said
when his father uncorked a magnum to wash down the fatted calf."
Gradually Sylvia did succeed in sorting out from the various men a few
who were content to accept the terms of friendship she offered. She had
to admit that most of them fell soon or late, and with each new man she
gave less and took more. As regards Lily, she tried to keep her as
unapproachable as herself, but it was not always possible. Sometimes
with a shrug of the shoulders she let Lily go her own way, though she
was always hard as steel with the fortunate suitor. Once a rich young
financier called Hausberg, who had found Lily somewhat expensive,
started a theory that Sylvia was living on her friend; she heard of the
slander and dealt with it very directly. The young man in question was
anxious to set Lily up in a flat of her own. Sylvia let Lily appear to
view the plan with favor. The flat was taken and furnished; a date was
fixed for Lily's entrance; the young man was given the latch-key and
told to come at midnight. When he arrived, there was nobody in the flat
but a chimpanzee that Sylvia had bought at Jamrack's. She and Lily were
at Brighton with Arthur Lonsdale and Tony Clarehaven, whom they had
recently met again at a Covent Garden ball.
They were both just down from Oxford, and Lonsdale had taken a great
fancy to Lily. He was a jolly youth, whose father, Lord Cleveden, had
consented after a struggle to let him go into partnership with a
distinguished professional motorist. It was with him that Dorothy
Lonsdale claimed distant kinship. Clarehaven's admiration for Dorothy
had not diminished; somebody had told him that the best way to get hold
of her would be to make her jealous. This was his object in inviting
Sylvia to Brighton. Sylvia agreed to go, partly to tease Dorothy, partly
to disappoint Clarehaven. Lonsdale had helped her to get the chimpanzee
into the flat, and all the way down to Brighton they laughed.
"My word, you know!" Lonsdale chuckled, "the jolly old chimpanzee will
probably eat the wall-paper. What do you think Hausberg will say when he
opens the door?"
"I expect he'll say, 'Are you there, Lily?'" Sylvia suggested.
"What do you think the jolly old chimpanzee will do? Probably bite his
ear off--what? Topping. Good engine this. We're doing fifty-nine or an
unripe sixty. Why does a chicken cross the road? No answer, thank you,
this time. Must slow down a bit. There's a trap somewhere here. I say,
you know, I've got a sister called Sylvia. Hullo! hullo! Mind your hoop,
Tommy! Too late. Funeral on Friday. Colonial papers please copy. I
wonder how they'll get the chimpanzee out again. I told the hall porter,
when he cast a cold and glassy eye on the crate, it was a marble Venus
that Mr. Hausberg was going to use as a hat-stand. My word! I expect the
jolly old flat looks like the last days of Pompeii by now. When I undid
the door of the crate the brute was making a noise like a discontented
cistern. I rapidly scattered Brazil nuts and bananas on the floor to
occupy his mind and melted away like a strawberry ice on a grill. Hullo!
We're getting into Brighton."
Clarehaven did not enjoy his week-end, for it consisted entirely of a
lecture by Sylvia on his behavior. This caused him to drink many more
whisky-and-sodas than usual, and he came back to London on Monday with a
bad headache, which he attributed to Sylvia's talking.
"My dear man, _I_ haven't got a mouth. You have," she said.
This week-end caused a quarrel between Sylvia and Dorothy, for which she
was not sorry. She had recently met a young painter, Ronald Walker, who
wanted Lily to sit for him; he had taken them once or twice to the Café
Royal, which Sylvia had found a pleasant change from the society of Half
Moon Street. Soon after this Lonsdale began a liaison with Queenie
Molyneux, of the Frivolity Theater. The only member of the Half Moon
Street set with whom Sylvia kept up a friendship was Olive Fanshawe.