Carnival Part 29

Chapter XV: _Cras Amet_

The next morning sunlight shone in upon Jenny's rose-dyed awakening.

Flushed with dreams, she blinked, murmuring in sleepy surprise:

"Oo--er! if it isn't a fine day."

"It's glorious," corroborated May emphatically.

"Oh, it's lovely; let's all wave flags."

"You were a mad thing last night," said May.

"Don't take any notice, dee-ar. I was feeling funnified."

"Opening the window like that and shouting out in your sleep and cuddling me all night long."

"Did I?" inquired Jenny curiously.

"Did you? I should think you did. Not half."

"Well, if you're a little love and make me a cup of tea, I'll tell you all about it."

"About what?"

"About him. Oh, May, he's lovely. Oh, he's It."

"Who is?"

"A fellow I met this week."

"What, another?"

"Ah, but this one's the One and Only."

"Go on, I know your One and Onlies."

"Oh, but May, he's a young dream, is My Friend the Prince. I'm going to meet him this afternoon with young Irene."

"And have a proper game with him, I suppose, and do the poor boy in and say good-by."

"I hope I sha'n't never say good-by to him. Never, I do."

"You have got it bad."

"I know. Listen, May. He's rather tall and he's got a nice complexion, only his mother says he's rather pale, and he's got very white teeth and a mouth that's always moving, and simply glorious eyes."

"What color?"

"Blue. And he talks very nice, and his name's Maurice. But whatever you do, don't say nothing to mother about it."

"As if I should."

Mrs. Raeburn came into the room at that moment.

"Are you lazy girls going to get up?"

"Oh, ma, _don't_ be silly. Get up? Oh, what a liberty!"

"Lying in bed on this lovely morning," protested Mrs. Raeburn.

"That's it. Now you carry on about the lovely morning. Young May's already woke me up once to look at the sun. All I know is it makes the room look most shocking dusty."

The day deepened from a morning of pale gold to an amber afternoon, whose melting splendor suffused the thin blue autumn sky with a glittering haze. Jenny stood pensive awhile upon the doorstep.

"Hark, what a noise the birds are all making. Whatever's the matter?"

"They're pleased it's fine," said May.

"Oh, they're pleased, too, are they?" Jenny exclaimed, as, with a long shadow leading her slim form, she went through a world of russet leaves and cheeping sparrows to meet her lover.

At the club there was a message from Irene to say she was ill and unable to keep the appointment.

"That's funny," Jenny thought. "Seems as if it's bound to be."

Through Leicester Square she went with eyes that twisted a hundred necks in retrospect. Down Charing Cross Road she hurried, past the old men peering into the windows of bookshops, past the _delicatessen_ shops full of gold and silver paper, past a tall, gloomy church haunted by beggars, hurrying faster and faster until she swung into the sunlight of Shaftesbury Avenue. There was Maurice studying very earnestly the photographs outside the Palace Theater.

"Here I am, Claude," she laughed over his shoulder.

"Oh, I am glad you've come," he said.

"Irene couldn't come. She's ill. Shame, isn't it?"

"Really," said Maurice, trying to seem concerned. "Let's go and have tea."

"Oh, you unnatural man. Aren't you sorry she's ill?"

"I can't be sorry you're alone. Where shall we have tea?"

"Where _you_ like."

"I know a funny little shop off Soho Square where there aren't many people."

"Don't you like people, then?"

"Not always."