Of course he’s young.’
Evie was looking down at the dressing-table.
Julia liked everything always to be in the same place, and if a pot of grease or her eyeblack was not exactly where it should be made a scene.
‘Where’s your comb?’
He had used it to comb his hair and had carelessly placed it on the tea-table.
When Evie caught sight of it she stared at it for a moment reflectively.
‘How on earth did it get there?’ cried Julia lightly.
‘I was just wondering.’
It gave Julia a nasty turn.
Of course it was madness to do that sort of thing in the dressing-room.
Why, there wasn’t even a key in the lock.
Evie kept it.
All the same the risk had given it a spice.
It was fun to think that she could be so crazy.
At all events they’d made a date now.
Tom, she’d asked him what they called him at home and he said Thomas, she really couldn’t call him that, Tom wanted to take her to supper somewhere so that they could dance, and it happened that Michael was going up to Cambridge for a night to rehearse a series of one-act plays written by undergraduates.
They would be able to spend hours together.
‘You can get back with the milk,’ he’d said.
‘And what about my performance next day?’
‘We can’t bother about that.’ She had refused to let him fetch her at the theatre, and when she got to the restaurant they had chosen he was waiting for her in the lobby.
His face lit up as he saw her.
‘It was getting so late, I was afraid you weren’t coming.’
‘I’m sorry, some tiresome people came round after the play and I couldn’t get rid of them.’
But it wasn’t true.
She had been as excited all the evening as a girl going to her first ball.
She could not help thinking how absurd she was.
But when she had taken off her theatrical make-up and made up again for supper she could not satisfy herself.
She put blue on her eyelids and took it off again, she rouged her cheeks, rubbed them clean and tried another colour.
‘What are you trying to do?’ said Evie.
‘I’m trying to look twenty, you fool.’
‘If you try much longer you’ll look your age.’
She had never seen him in evening clothes before.
He shone like a new pin.
Though he was of no more than average height his slimness made him look tall.
She was a trifle touched to see that for all his airs of the man of the world he was shy with the head waiter when it came to ordering supper.
They danced and he did not dance very well, but she found his slight awkwardness rather charming.
People recognized her, and she was conscious that he enjoyed the reflected glory of their glances.
A pair of young things who had been dancing came up to their table to say how do you do to her.
When they had left he asked:
‘Wasn’t that Lord and Lady Dennorant?’
‘Yes. I’ve known George since he was at Eton.’
He followed them with his eyes.
‘She was Lady Cecily Laweston, wasn’t she?’
‘I’ve forgotten.
Was she?’
It seemed a matter of no interest to her.
A few minutes later another couple passed them.
‘Look, there’s Lady Lepard.’
‘Who’s she?’
‘Don’t you remember, they had a big party at their place in Cheshire a few weeks ago and the Prince of Wales was there.