Theatre Page 0,42
passionately kissed her mouth. She could not help herself, she put her arms round his neck, and kissed him as passionately.
("Oh, my good resolutions. My God, I can't have fallen in love with him.")
"For goodness' sake, sit down. Evie's coming in with the tea."
"Tell her not to disturb us."
"What do you mean?" But what he meant was obvious. Her heart began to beat quickly. "It's ridiculous. I can't. Michael might come in."
"I want you."
"What d'you suppose Evie would think? It'd be idiotic to take such a risk. No, no, no."
There was a knock at the door and Evie came in with the tea. Julia gave her instructions to put the table by the side of her sofa and a chair for the young man on the other side of the table. She kept Evie with unnecessary conversation. She felt him looking at her. His eyes moved quickly, following her gestures and the expression of her face; she avoided them, but she felt their anxiety and the eagerness of his desire. She was troubled. It seemed to her that her voice did not sound quite natural.
("What the devil's the matter with me? God, I can hardly breathe.")
When Evie reached the door the boy made a gesture that was so instinctive that her sensitiveness rather than her sight caught it. She could not but look at him. His face had gone quite pale.
"Oh, Evie," she said. "This gentleman wants to talk to me about a play. See that no one disturbs me. I'll ring when I want you."
"Very good, miss."
Evie went out and closed the door.
("I'm a fool. I'm a bloody fool.")
But he had moved the table, and he was on his knees, and she was in his arms.
She sent him away a little before Miss Phillips was due, and when he was gone rang for Evie.
"Play any good?" asked Evie.
"What play?"
"The play 'e was talkin' to you abaht."
"He's clever. Of course he's young."
Evie was looking down at the dressing-table. Julia liked everything always to be in the same place, and if a pot of grease or her eyeblack was not exactly where it should be made a scene.
"Where's your comb?"
He had used it to comb his hair and had carelessly placed it on the tea-table. When Evie caught sight of it she stared at it for a moment reflectively.
"How on earth did it get there?" cried Julia lightly.
"I was just wondering."
It gave Julia a nasty turn. Of course it was madness to do that sort of thing in the dressing-room. Why, there wasn't even a key in the lock. Evie kept it. All the same the risk had given it a spice. It was fun to think that she could be so crazy. At all events they'd made a date now. Tom, she'd asked him what they called him at home and he said Thomas, she really couldn't call him that, Tom wanted to take her to supper somewhere so that they could dance, and it happened that Michael was going up to Cambridge for a night to rehearse a series of one-act plays written by undergraduates. They would be able to spend hours together.
"You can get back with the milk,"* he'd said.
"And what about my performance next day?"
"We can't bother about that."
She had refused to let him fetch her at the theatre, and when she got to the restaurant they had chosen he was waiting for her in the lobby. His face lit up as he saw her.
"It was getting so late, I was afraid you weren't coming."
"I'm sorry, some tiresome people came round after the play and I couldn't get rid of them."
But it wasn't true. She had been as excited all the evening as a girl going to her first ball. She could not help thinking how absurd she was. But when she had taken off her theatrical make-up and made up again for supper she could not satisfy herself. She put blue on her eyelids and took it off again, she rouged her cheeks, rubbed them clean and tried another colour.
"What are you trying to do?" said Evie.
"I'm trying to look twenty, you fool."
"If you try much longer you'll look your age."
She had never seen him in evening clothes before. He shone like a new pin. Though he was of no more than average height his slimness made him look tall. She was a trifle touched to see that for all his airs of the man of the world he was shy with the head waiter when