Alice Sit-By-The-Fire | Page 3

is prepared for it, her honest grey eyes even tell that she has wanted it, but now that it is come she quails a little. 'Another theatre?' she murmurs. 'Ginevra, that would be five in one week.'
Ginevra does not blanch. 'Yes,' she says recklessly, 'but it is also only eight in seventeen years.'
'Isn't it,' says Amy, comforted. 'And they have taught us so much, haven't they? Until Monday, dear, when we went to our first real play we didn't know what Life is.'
'We were two raw, unbleached school-girls, Amy--absolutely unbleached.'
It is such a phrase as this that gives Ginevra the moral ascendancy in their discussions.
'Of course,' Amy ventures, looking perhaps a little unbleached even now, 'of course I had my diary, dear, and I do think that, even before Monday, there were things in it of a not wholly ordinary kind.'
'Nothing,' persists Ginevra cruelly, 'that necessitated your keeping it locked.'
'No, I suppose not,' sadly enough. 'You are quite right, Ginevra. But we have made up for lost time. Every night since Monday, including the matinee, has been a revelation.'
She closes her eyes so that she may see the revelations more clearly. So does Ginevra.
'Amy, that heart-gripping scene when the love-maddened woman visited the man in his chambers.'
'She wasn't absolutely love-maddened, Ginevra; she really loved her husband best all the time.'
'Not till the last act, darling.'
'Please don't say it, Ginevra. She was most foolish, especially in the crepe de chine, but we know that she only went to the man's chambers to get back her letters. How I trembled for her then.'
'I was strangely calm,' says Ginevra the stony hearted.
'Oh, Ginevra, I had such a presentiment that the husband would call at those chambers while she was there. And he did. Ginevra, you remember his knock upon the door. Surely you trembled then?'
Ginevra knits her lips triumphantly.
'Not even then, Amy. Somehow I felt sure that in the nick of time her lady friend would step out from somewhere and say that the letters were hers.'
'Nobly compromising herself, Ginevra.'
'Amy, how I love that bit where she says so unexpectedly, with noble self-renunciation, "He is my affianced husband."'
'Isn't it glorious. Strange, Ginevra, that it happened in each play.'
'That was because we always went to the thinking theatres, Amy. Real plays are always about a lady and two men; and alas, only one of them is her husband. That is Life, you know. It is called the odd, odd triangle.'
'Yes, I know.' Appealingly, 'Ginevra, I hope it wasn't wrong of me to go. A month ago I was only a school-girl.'
'We both were.' 'Yes, but you are now an art student, in lodgings, with a latchkey of your own; you have no one dependent on you, while I have a brother and sister to--to form.'
'You must leave it to the Navy, dear, to form Cosmo, if it can; and as the sister is only a baby, time enough to form her when she can exit from her pram.'
'I am in a mother's place for the time being, Ginevra.'
'Even mothers go to thinking theatres.'
'Whether mine does, Ginevra, I don't even know. This is a very strange position I am in, awaiting the return from India of parents I have not seen since I was twelve years old. I don't even know if they will like the house. The rent is what they told me to give, but perhaps my scheme of decoration won't appeal to them; they may think my housekeeping has been defective, and may not make allowance for my being so new to it.'
Ginevra takes Amy in her arms. 'My ownest Amy, if they are not both on their knees to you for the noble way in which you have striven to prepare this house for them--'
'Darling Ginevra, all I ask is to be allowed to do my duty.'
'Listen, then, Amy: your duty is to be able to help your parents in every way when they return. Your mother having been so long in India can know little about Life; how sweet, then, for you to be able to place your knowledge at her feet.'
'I had thought of that, dearest.'
'Then Amy, it would be simply wrong of us not to go to another theatre to-night. I have three and ninepence, so that if you can scrape together one and threepence--'
'Generous girl, it can't be.'
'Why not, Amy?'
The return of Cosmo handling the telegram more pugnaciously than ever provides the answer.
'Cosmo, show Miss Dunbar the telegram.'
Miss Dunbar reads: 'Boat arrived Southampton this morning.'
'A day earlier than they expected,' Amy explains.
'It's the other bit I am worrying about,' Cosmo says darkly. The other bit proves to be 'Hope to reach our pets this afternoon. Kisses from both to all. Deliriously excited. Mummy and Dad.'
Now we see why Cosmo has been in distress.
'Pets, kisses,' he cries. 'What