"Get back to your place, Miss Mortimer," snapped Powell.
"Not me. I'm going."
As she began to cross the stage on her way out a voice came from the depths of the auditorium:
"Miss Mortimer, we're not concerned with your private appointments. If they're to interfere with your work here you can look for another engagement somewhere else."
The show-girl glanced in the direction of the voice and shrugged.
"Mean you'll fire me, Mr. De Freyne? Well, I don't care. Pa's rich!"
She walked off jauntily, her high heels clicking on the boards, a costly plume streaming over her left ear. The lessee of the Pall Mall Theater said nothing. He was mildly amused. He stood in the dark at the back of the dress circle complacently regarding his theatrical seraglio. All the girls were pretty, or if not pretty, showy. Some had been selected for their figures, some for their faces, some for both. No duchess, not even a fashionable duchess, was arrayed like one of these. Solomon in all his glory might perhaps have competed with them, but not the lilies of the field. Presently De Freyne's gimlet eyes picked out Maggy and Alexandra. Their appearance disturbed his equanimity.
He watched them attentively for ten minutes or so, at the end of which period the tired stage-manager dismissed the chorus for the morning. De Freyne's authoritative voice again made itself heard.
"Miss Delamere and Miss Hersey. Step up to my room before you go, please. I want to speak to you."
The girls exchanged scared glances. A special interview with De Freyne was sufficiently unusual to fill them with dismay. He was not in the habit of detaining members of his chorus for the fun of the thing.
They groped their way along dim, soft-carpeted passages to the front of the house and entered the managerial office. De Freyne was blunt to a degree. He wasted no time.
"You two girls have got to make more of a show," he told them. "I can't have shabby dresses at the Pall Mall."
Alexandra was too taken aback by this curt rebuke to make any reply; but Maggy lost her temper.
"Meaning flash clothes and jewelry?" she bit out. "How do you expect us to do it on thirty-five shillings a week, Mr. De Freyne?"
"I'm not interested in your resources," was De Freyne's cold answer.
"You ought to be. You ought to get a pencil and slate and write down the cost of lodgings, food, boots, and all the rest of it, and figure out how little we've got left to buy clothes with—unless we don't care who buys them for us. We're not that sort—not yet."
"You must look smarter," reiterated De Freyne, showing no resentment at this tirade. "You silly creatures, don't you want to attract attention?"
"We'll attract attention on the night. Don't worry," said Maggy. She was afraid of De Freyne, but she did not let her voice show it.
"That's all very well, but you know the unwritten clause of my agreement with you all. The ladies of my chorus have got to be dressed decently off the stage as well as on.... Anyhow, there it is. Take it or leave it." He dismissed them with a nod.
Neither said anything until they had passed out of the stage-door and were in the street.
"That means new clothes," said Alexandra in a tone of deep depression.
"Or Dick Whittington!" Maggy rejoined dryly. "Turn and turn again—our dresses. I'll have a go at yours to-night, Lexie. Look, there's Mortimer and her boy."
A big car slid past them, ridiculously upholstered in white velvet. An effete-looking youth and the girl who had stated that her "pa" was rich lolled in the back seat.
Maggy's eyes followed them speculatively.
"Wonder if there's anything in it?" she remarked.
"In what?"
"In that sort of a good time. Flat, money, pet dog, car, week-ends at Brighton—enough to eat."
"I don't want to think about it."
"Neither do I. But I have lately. I'm wondering what on earth we're standing out for. No one thinks any the better of us for it. The girls all think us fools, and the men just grin and wait."
"Don't talk about it. Talking makes it all seem worse."
"One day I shall do more than talk. I shall walk off."
Alexandra said nothing. She knew Maggy's mood. Maggy was hungry, tired, and cross. Motives of economy impelled them towards their lodgings, where half a tin of sardines was waiting to be consumed. Neither had had anything to eat since early morning. And when they had lunched they would have to walk back to the theater for rehearsal again at three. Maggy suddenly halted before a Lyons' depot.
"Come on in, Lexie," she said. "We can't wait. We shan't be home till past two. And if we're late back we'll be fined."
"There's the tin of—" Alexandra began and stopped.
Maggy had pushed open the swing doors. The grateful smell of hot and well-made coffee and savory, nourishing food, cheapness notwithstanding, made her surrender to temptation. Deprivation has this effect. De Freyne, lunching expensively at the Savoy, recognizing here and there approved members of his chorus and their cavaliers, could not be expected to know anything of empty stomachs. Besides, it was their own fault if the girls did not know which side their bread was buttered.
They sat down at one of the marble-topped tables. A waitress came towards them.
"Two cups of coffee, rolls and butter—"
This was Alexandra's order.
"Coffee, rolls, and two steak-and-kidney puddings," augmented Maggy recklessly.
Unmoved, the attendant went off to execute the order.
Maggy met Alexandra's startled eyes. Her own were defiant.
"Don't tell me," she said. "It'll cost us nearly eighteenpence. I don't care. I'm going to pay, and if I don't go bust that way I shall do something worse. We're going to feed, dear!"
V
"Damn! She's turned off the gas!"
Maggy stopped machining. The small room was plunged in darkness. Alexandra groped for matches and lit the candles. It was not easy to work by the flickering light, but both girls went on with what they were doing. There was something grim about the task. One associates the alteration of frills and furbelows with some small pleasure to the adapter; but there was none here. Necessity impelled them, kept them out of their beds. They were heavy with sleep. The air of the room was close and unpleasant.
Maggy had all but finished turning Alexandra's coat and skirt. Alexandra had adapted two Indian shawls into an effective dress for Maggy. The work was too hastily done to bear inspection at close quarters or much strain by its wearer. They had been steadily at it for five hours.
It was Maggy who gave in first. She finished machining with a savage jerk, leaving the handle to revolve by itself.
"Let's go to bed," she said. "I'll get up half an hour earlier and finish that."
Alexandra went on. She was not going to be beaten for the sake of half an hour. Besides, she knew that Maggy in the cashmere shawl arrangement would please De Freyne. She, at any rate, would pass muster.
"I'm not so very tired now," she answered without looking up, "and I may be in the morning."
Maggy shook her hair down and slipped out of her clothes with the celerity that comes of practise between the acts. She did not even trouble to take the paint off her face. She got into bed and lay watching Alexandra working by the guttering candle-light. She did not talk. She was too utterly tired.
At last Alexandra's work was done. She hung up the dress and put away the needles and cotton. She had a strong inclination to get into bed without more ado than Maggy had