Carnival Part 34

"Why?"

"You've taken a sudden craze for thinking."

"Oh, do be serious," he said petulantly. "Here are we. We meet. We fall in love at once. We roam about London in a sort of mist of love and we haven't settled anything."

"Why can't we go on roaming about, as you call it?"

"We can--up to a point. Only--" he hesitated.

"Only what?"

"Look here. Are you sure I'm the right person, not a possible, but the person you've dreamed of, thought of?"

"I'm sure you're a darling."

Jenny had no use for subtleties, no anxiety to establish the derivation of an affection which existed as a simple fact. She was not a girl to whose lips endearing epithets came easily. She had many words ready to describe everything except her deepest emotions. In love she became shy of herself. Maurice had a stock of sweet vocatives which she would have been too proud to imitate. "Darling" said what she wished to say, and it was difficult even to say that.

"Well, do you want anybody else?" he asked.

"No."

"You won't get tired of me in another month?"

"Don't be silly."

"You said the other day you didn't trust anybody. Do you mean to say seriously that you don't trust me?"

"I suppose I do. You're different."

"Only suppose?" asked Maurice.

"Well, I do."

"You're not certain. Great heavens, child, can't you see what a terrible thing that is to say?"

"I don't see that it's so very terrible."

"But it kills me dead. I feel all the time you think I'm masquerading. I feel like a figure with a mask in a carnival. I meet you in another mask. I say, 'Take it off,' and you won't. You shrivel up."

"I don't know who you're getting angry with," said Jenny. "I haven't said nothing."

"Nothing!" cried Maurice. "It's nothing to tell somebody who adores you--good heavens, it's raining now! Of course it _would_ rain in the middle of grappling with a situation. What a d.a.m.nable climate this is!"

"I'm glad you're going to quarrel with the weather a bit for a change,"

said Jenny. "I think you're in a very nasty mood."

"You don't understand me," said Maurice.

"I don't want to." She spoke coldly.

"Jenny, I'm sorry I said that. Darling girl, do forgive me."

The wind had risen to half a gale. Heath Street was full of people hurrying to shelter, and the entrance to the Tube station was crowded.

"Don't be angry with me," Maurice whispered as the lift stopped. "I was tired and foolish. Jenny, I'm sorry."

"If any other man had spoken like you spoke," said Jenny, "I'd have got up and gone away and never seen him again, not ever, not however much I might want to, I wouldn't let myself. I couldn't."

Further discussion was killed by the noise of the train, and Jenny and Maurice could only sit speechless, gazing at a long line of damp people, most of them carrying rain-dabbled bunches of Michaelmas daisies. By the time Piccadilly was reached Maurice was himself again, full of plans for to-morrow's birthday party.

"Seeing those people in the Tube with those bluish flowers, what d'ye call them, made me think of a party I had for my birthday when I lived with an aunt in the country," said Jenny.

As it was not yet time for her to go into the theater, they turned aside into the Monico and drank Quinquina Dubonnet while the final arrangements were being made for the party.

"Now, who exactly is coming?" asked Maurice.

"Irene, if she's well enough, and Elsie Crauford, who isn't bad, but who's got to be told off sometimes, and Madge Wilson, who you haven't met, but she's a pretty girl, and Maud Chapman and perhaps Gladys West.

Oh, and can't I bring Lilli Vergoe? She's a bit old--you know--but she's a nice girl and I used to know her when I was little."

"Right," said Maurice. "That makes seven. Then there'll be me and Castleton and Cunningham and Ronnie Walker and probably one or two odd ones'll drop in. You'll turn up about four--eh? It's lucky your birthday comes on a Sunday. Must you go now? All right, my sweet. Till to-morrow.

By Jove, we'll have a great time, won't we?"

"Rather," said Jenny.

Then just as she prepared to cross to the other side of Piccadilly, from the island on which they were standing, Maurice called her back.

"Jenny, darling, I am forgiven, aren't I?"

"Of course."

She looked back before she turned the corner into Regent Street and waved to him. He sighed and went off very happy to meet Castleton for dinner.

It was characteristic of Jenny that she issued her invitations very coldly. Most girls grew enthusiastic over such events, but Jenny did not believe in "showing herself up" by demonstrations of delight.

"Coming to tea with that friend of mine to-morrow?" she asked Madge Wilson.

"Of course I am, duck, I'd love it," said Madge, a round-faced, fluffy-haired girl, pretty, but always apt to be mistaken for somebody else.

"It's nothing to rave over," said Jenny. "It's in a studio something like your mother's shop. But there's a jolly fine piano and I daresay it won't be bad."

"I shall love it," said Madge.

"Well, don't wave too many flags."

To the other girls Jenny offered the entertainment casually, like a chocolate-cream.

Then she went to look for Lilli Vergoe in the dressing-room of the second line of girls. Lilli seemed much surprised by the invitation.