Theatre Page 0,68

the New Year in; and a few days later Roger set off for Vienna. While he was in London Julia saw little of Tom. She did not ask Roger what they did when they tore about the town together, she did not want to know, she steeled herself not to think and distracted her mind by going to as many parties as she could. And there was always her acting; when once she got into the theatre her anguish, her humiliation, her jealousy were allayed. It gave her a sense of triumphant power to find, as it were in her pot of grease paint, another personality that could be touched by no human griefs. With that refuge always at hand she could support anything.

On the day that Roger left, Tom rang her up from his office.

"Are you doing anything tonight? What about going out on the binge?"

"No, I'm busy."

It was not true, but the words slipped out of her mouth, independent of her will.

"Oh, are you? Well, what about tomorrow?"

If he had expressed disappointment, if he had asked her to cut the date he supposed she had, she might have had strength to break with him then and there. His casualness defeated her.

"Tomorrow's all right."

"O.K. I'll fetch you at the theatre after the show. Bye-bye."

Julia was ready and waiting when he was shown into her dressing-room. She was strangely nervous. His face lit up when he saw her, and when Evie went out of the room for a moment he caught her in his arms and warmly kissed her on the lips.

"I feel all the better for that," he laughed.

You would never have thought to look at him, so young, fresh and ingenuous, in such high spirits, that he was capable of giving her so much pain. You would never have thought that he was so deceitful. It was quite plain that he had not noticed that for more than a fortnight he had hardly seen her.

("Oh, God, if I could only tell him to go to hell.")

But she looked at him with a gay smile in her lovely eyes.

"Where are we going?"

"I've got a table at Quag's. They've got a new turn there, an American conjurer, who's grand."

She talked with vivacity all through supper. She told him about the various parties she had been to, and the theatrical functions she had not been able to get out of, so that it seemed only on account of her engagements that they had not met. It disconcerted her to perceive that he took it as perfectly natural. He was glad to see her, that was plain, he was interested in what she had been doing and in the people she had seen, but it was plain also that he had not missed her. To see what he would say she told him that she had had an offer to take the play in which she was acting to New York. She told him the terms that had been suggested.

"They're marvellous," he said, his eyes glittering. "What a snip. You can't lose and you may make a packet."

"The only thing is, I don't much care for leaving London."

"Why on earth not? I should have thought you'd jump at it. The play's had a good long run, for all you know it'll be pretty well through by Easter, and if you want to make a stab at America you couldn't have a better vehicle."

"I don't see why it shouldn't run through the summer. Besides, I don't like strangers very much. I'm fond of my friends."

"I think that's silly. Your friends'll get along without you all right. And you'll have a grand time in New York."

Her gay laugh was very convincing.

"One would think you were terribly anxious to get rid of me."

"Of course I should miss you like hell. But it would only be for a few months. If I had a chance like that I'd jump at it."

But when they had finished supper and the commissionaire had called up a taxi for them he gave the address of the flat as if it were an understood thing that they should go back to it. In the taxi he put his arm round her waist and kissed her, and later, when she lay in his arms, in the little single bed, she felt that all the pain she had suffered during that last fortnight was not too great a price to pay for the happy peace that filled her heart.

Julia

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