“Say no more! Nobody loves me! I shall go into the garden and eat
worms! Boohoo! I am crushed!”
She buried herself behind a large comic French paper. In a minute or
two I saw her eyes stealthily peeping at me over the top. In spite of
myself I could not help smiling, and in a minute she had tossed the
paper aside, and had burst into a merry peal of laughter.
“I knew you weren’t such a mutt as you looked,” she cried.
Her laughter was so infectious that I could not help joining in, though
I hardly cared for the word “mutt.” The girl was certainly all that I
most disliked, but that was no reason why I should make myself
ridiculous by my attitude. I prepared to unbend. After all, she was
decidedly pretty.…
“There! Now we’re friends!” declared the minx. “Say you’re sorry about
my sister—”
“I am desolated!”
“That’s a good boy!”
“Let me finish. I was going to add that, although I am desolated, I can
manage to put up with her absence very well.” I made a little bow.
But this most unaccountable of damsels frowned and shook her head.
“Cut it out. I prefer the ‘dignified disapproval’ stunt. Oh, your face!
‘Not one of us,’ it said. And you were right there—though, mind you,
it’s pretty hard to tell nowadays. It’s not every one who can
distinguish between a demi and a duchess. There now, I believe I’ve
shocked you again! You’ve been dug out of the backwoods, you have. Not
that I mind that. We could do with a few more of your sort. I just hate
a fellow who gets fresh. It makes me mad.”
She shook her head vigorously.
“What are you like when you’re mad?” I inquired with a smile.
“A regular little devil! Don’t care what I say, or what I do, either! I
nearly did a chap in once. Yes, really. He’d have deserved it too.
Italian blood I’ve got. I shall get into trouble one of these days.”
“Well,” I begged, “don’t get mad with me.”
“I shan’t. I like you—did the first moment I set eyes on you. But you
looked so disapproving that I never thought we should make friends.”
“Well, we have. Tell me something about yourself.”
“I’m an actress. No—not the kind you’re thinking of, lunching at the
Savoy covered with jewellery, and with their photograph in every paper
saying how much they love Madame So and So’s face cream. I’ve been on
the boards since I was a kid of six—tumbling.”
“I beg your pardon,” I said puzzled.
“Haven’t you seen child acrobats?”
“Oh, I understand.”
“I’m American born, but I’ve spent most of my life in England. We got a
new show now—”
“We?”
“My sister and I. Sort of song and dance, and a bit of patter, and a
dash of the old business thrown in. It’s quite a new idea, and it hits
them every time. There’s to be money in it—”
My new acquaintance leaned forward, and discoursed volubly, a great
many of her terms being quite unintelligible to me. Yet I found myself
evincing an increasing interest in her. She seemed such a curious
mixture of child and woman. Though perfectly worldly-wise, and able, as
she expressed it, to take care of herself, there was yet something
curiously ingenuous in her single-minded attitude towards life, and her
whole-hearted determination to “make good.” This glimpse of a world
unknown to me was not without its charm, and I enjoyed seeing her vivid
little face light up as she talked.
We passed through Amiens. The name awakened many memories. My companion
seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of what was in my mind.
“Thinking of the War?”