"My dear Olive," she said, "nothing could be nicer for me, and of course I happen to be one of the few girls who would or could understand that there is nothing in it. What a pity the weather's so wet for house-hunting."
"That's what the great man said, and he told me to hire an electric brougham until I've found the place I want."
"Of course," said Dorothy, as if the idea of searching for a flat outside an electric brougham, a rare luxury in those days, was inconceivable.
For a fortnight she and Olive glided here and there along the dim, wintry streets, until at last they noticed that the stiff Georgian houses at the far end of Halfmoon Street bulged out into an efflorescence of bright new flats, which on inspection seemed to provide exactly the address and the comfort they required.
"It's an awfully good address," said Dorothy. "Clarges Street would have been a little nearer to Berkeley Square, but...." She forgave the extra block or two with a gesture.
"And really not far from Devonshire House, though from Stratton Street we should have overlooked the garden."
"But we can take San Toy for her walks in Green Park." San Toy was Olive's Pekinese spaniel.
"I shall have my bedroom in apple green," Dorothy announced. "Apple green with rose-du-barri curtains; and you'd better have cream with café-au-lait in yours, unless you have eau-de-nil and sage.... I think the fourth-story flat was the nicest."
"Yes, it's more romantic to be high up," Olive agreed.
"And the light is better for one's dressing-table," Dorothy added.
In dread of a maternal attempt to bring about a reconciliation between herself and her father, Dorothy had hoped to avoid spending Christmas at home. But the flat could not be ready until February; so, partly to keep her mother quiet, partly because she was a little apprehensive of the paternal prerogative with which Mr. Caffyn had threatened her minority, she consented on Christmas morning to be kissed by his mustache. Perhaps he was more willing to forgive her owing to his wife's conduct of her financial affairs having provided an excuse to transfer them into his own hands.
Dorothy's absence from the last Christmas gathering at home had not sharpened her appetite for this kind of celebration, and she did not at all like the sensation of being in the bosom of her family; Gulliver was scarcely more disgusted by the Brobdingnagian maids of honor. Seizing the occasion to impress upon her younger brothers and sisters her disapproval of any inclination to boast about having a famously beautiful sister at the Vanity, she was mortified to learn that her career was regarded by the juniors as a slur upon their social standing. Cecil informed her bluntly that in his society--the society of industrious scholars at St. James's--actresses were regarded with horror, and that though an unpleasant rumor had pervaded the school of Caffyn's having a sister on the stage, he had managed to stifle such deleterious gossip. It seemed that the traditions of the preparatory school responsible for Vincent's budding social sense strictly forbade any allusion to family life in any form whatsoever; at Randell's _all_ relatives were regarded as a disgrace, and only last term a boy had been called upon to apologize for the extraordinary appearance his mother had presented at the prize-giving. Another boy, whose father was reputed to belong to the Royal Academy, had been forced to allay with largess of tuck the hostile criticism leveled against a flowing cravat his parent had worn at the school sports. As for sisters, Vincent affirmed, their very existence was regarded as a shameful secret; but a sister on the stage ... he turned away in despair of words to express what a humiliation that would bring upon him were it known. Agnes and Edna assured Dorothy they had far too many enthralling topics of conversation already to bother about her; but when one or two of the mistresses had inquired how she was getting on and had regretted that she was not acting in Shakespeare, they had certainly not revealed that she was now called Dorothy Lonsdale, because the real Dorothy was also an old girl; so that even if one of the mistresses in an unbridled moment should visit the Vanity, she would search for Miss Norah Caffyn upon the program and come away no wiser than she went.