“Well, I think you’ll miss a lot of fun, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re an absolute Godsend. The girl I’ve had for two years is going to be married. Of course, I can’t stop that, as much as I shall miss her. The earth needs repeopling, so I must let her go. The question has been where to get another. With all the unemployment no one seems very keen on doing anything but work in factories. I’d love to have you. Come by all means. Breezy, engage her. I hope we shall rub along very nicely together.”
As much to hide the gleam in her eyes from her aunt as to show deference to her new mistress, Lola bowed. “I thank you, my lady,” she said.
“Fine,” said Lady Feo, “fine. That’s great. Saves me a world of trouble. Pretty lucky thing that I looked in here, wasn’t it?” She went to the door and turned. “When can you come, Lola?”
“To-night. I will let Emily off at once. She’ll be glad enough. I’ll send you home in the car. You can pack your things and get back in time to brush my hair. I suppose you know something about your job?”
Miss Breezy broke in hurriedly. Even now perhaps it might not be too late to beat this girl at her own game. “That’s it, my lady,” she said, tumbling over her words. “She doesn’t know anything about it. I’m afraid I ought to say——”
“Oh, well, Breezy, that’s nothing new. They none of ’em know anything. I’ll teach her. I don’t want a sham expert with her nose in the air. All I need is a girl with quick fingers, nippy on her feet, good to look at, who will laugh at my jokes. You promise to do that, Lola?”
A most delicious smile curled all about Lola’s mouth. “I promise, my lady,” she said.
Lady Feo nodded at her. “She’ll make a sensation,” she thought. “How jealous they’ll all be.—Righto, then. Seven o’clock. Don’t be late. So long.” And off she went, slamming the door behind her.
“You little devil,” said Miss Breezy, her dignity in great slabs at her feet.
But Lola had won. And the amazing part of it was that the door of the house in Dover Street had been opened to her by Fallaray’s wife.
Mrs. Malwood was hipped. She had been losing heavily at bridge, her Pomeranian had been run over in Berkeley Square and taken to the dog’s hospital, her most recent flame had just been married to his colonel’s daughter, and her fourth husband was still alive. Poor little soul, she had lots to grumble about. So she had come round to be cheered up by Feo Fallaray who always managed to laugh through deaths and epidemics to find her friend in the first stages of being dressed for dinner. She had explained her mental attitude, received a hearty kiss and been told to lie down and make herself comfortable. There she was, at the moment, in one of the peculiar frocks which had become almost like the uniform of Feo’s “gang.” She was not old, except in experience. In fact, she was not more than twenty-three. But as she lay on the sofa with her eyes closed and her lashes like black fans on her cheeks, a little pout on her pretty mouth and her bobbed head resting upon a brilliant cushion, she looked, in those clothes of hers, like a school girl whose headmistress was a woman of an aesthetic turn of mind but with a curious penchant for athleticism. Underneath her smock of duvetyn, the color of a ripe horse-chestnut, she wore bloomers and stockings rolled down under her knees,—as everybody could see. She might have been a rather swagger girl scout who never scouted, and there was just a touch of masculinity about her without anything muscular. She was, otherwise, so tiny a thing that any sort of a man could have taken her up in one hand and held her above his head. Very different from Lady Feo, whose shoulders were broad, whose bones were large, who stood five foot ten without her shoes, who could hand back anything that was given to her and swing a golf club like a man.