When Lola went into Feo’s room that evening it was with the intention of asking for her first holiday. It was a large order; she knew that, because her mistress had made innumerable engagements for the week. But this was to be another and most important rung in that ladder, which, if not achieved, rendered useless the others that she had climbed.
She was overjoyed to find Feo in an excellent mood. Things had been going well. The world had been full of amusement and a new man had turned up, a pucca man this time, discovered at the Winchfields’, constant in his attentions ever since. He owned a string of race horses and trained them at Dan Thirlwall’s old place behind Worthing, which made him all the more interesting. Feo adored the excitement of racing. And so it was easy for Lola to approach her subject and she did so at the moment when she had her ladyship in her power, the curling irons steaming. “If you please, my lady,” she said, in a perfectly even voice and with her eyes on the black bobbed hair, “would it be quite convenient for you if I had a week off from Thursday?”
“But what the devil does that matter?” said Feo. “If I don’t give you a week off, I suppose you’ll take it.”
Lola’s lips curled into a smile. It was impossible to resist this woman and her peculiar way of putting things. “But I think you know me better than that,” she said, twining that thick wiry hair round the tongs as an Italian twines spaghetti round a fork.
“What makes you think so? I don’t know you. I haven’t the remotest idea what you’re like. You never tell me anything. Ever since you’ve been with me you’ve never let me see under your skin once. I don’t even believe that you’re Breezy’s niece. I’ve only her word for it. After Sunday morning’s exhibition, I’m quite inclined to believe that you _are_ Madame de Brézé masquerading as a lady’s maid. If the War was still going on, I might think that you were a spy. A great idea for you to get into this house and pinch the papers of a Cabinet Minister. Yes, of course you can have a week off. What are you going to do? Get married, after all?”
Lola shook her head and the curl went away from her lips. “I want to go down to the country for a little rest,” she said.