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Page 82
For a few minutes she was panicky. Her hands shook as she put the
document away. She knew life with all the lack of illusion of two
years in the chorus. Even Lethway--not that she minded his casual
caress on the deck. She had seen a lot of that. It meant nothing.
Stage directors either bawled you out or petted you. That was part
of the business.
But to-night, all day indeed, there had been something in Lethway's
face that worried her. And there were other things.
The women on the boat replied coldly to her friendly advances. She
had spoken to a nice girl, her own age or thereabouts, and the
girl's mother or aunt or chaperon, whoever it was, had taken her
away. It had puzzled her at the time. Now she knew. The crowd that
had seen her off, from the Pretty Coquette Company--that had queered
her, she decided. That and Lethway.
None of the girls had thought it odd that she should cross the ocean
with Lethway. They had been envious, as a matter of fact. They had
brought her gifts, the queer little sachets and fruit and boxes of
candy that littered the room. In that half hour before sailing they
had chattered about her, chorus unmistakably, from their smart,
cheap little hats to their short skirts and fancy shoes. Her
roommate, Mabel, had been the only one she had hated to leave. And
Mabel had queered her, too, with her short-bobbed yellow hair.
She did a reckless thing that night, out of pure defiance. It was a
winter voyage in wartime. The night before the women had gone down,
sedately dressed, to dinner. The girl she had tried to speak to had
worn a sweater. So Edith dressed for dinner.
She whitened her neck and arms with liquid powder, and slicked up
her brown hair daringly smooth and flat. Then she put on her one
evening dress, a black net, and pinned on her violets. She rouged
her lips a bit too.
The boy, meeting her on the companionway, gasped.
That night he asked permission to move over to her table, and after
that the three of them ate together, Lethway watching and saying
little, the other two chattering. They were very gay. They gambled
to the extent of a quarter each, on the number of fronds, or
whatever they are, in the top of a pineapple that Cecil ordered in,
and she won. It was delightful to gamble, she declared, and put the
fifty cents into a smoking-room pool.
The boy was clearly infatuated. She looked like a debutante, and,
knowing it, acted the part. It was not acting really. Life had only
touched her so far, and had left no mark. When Lethway lounged away
to an evening's bridge Cecil fetched his military cape and they went
on deck.
"I'm afraid it's rather lonely for you," he said. "It's always like
this the first day or two. Then the women warm up and get friendly."
"I don't want to know them. They are a stupid-looking lot. Did you
ever see such clothes?"
"You are the only person who looks like a lady to-night," he
observed. "You look lovely. I hope you don't mind my saying it?"
She was a downright young person, after all. And there was something
about the boy that compelled candour. So, although she gathered
after a time that he did not approve of chorus girls, was even
rather skeptical about them and believed that the stage should be an
uplifting influence, she told him about herself that night.
It was a blow. He rallied gallantly, but she could see him
straggling to gain this new point of view.
"Anyhow," he said at last, "you're not like the others." Then
hastily: "I don't mean to offend you when I say that, you know. Only
one can tell, to look at you, that you are different." He thought
that sounded rather boyish, and remembered that he was going to the
war, and was, or would soon be, a fighting man. "I've known a lot of
girls," he added rather loftily. "All sorts of girls."
It was the next night that Lethway kissed her. He had left her alone
most of the day, and by sheer gravitation of loneliness she and the
boy drifted together. All day long they ranged the ship, watched a
boxing match in the steerage, fed bread to the hovering gulls from
the stern. They told each other many things. There had been a man in
the company who had wanted to marry her, but she intended to have a
career. Anyhow, she would not marry unless she loved a person very
much.
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