notice; he did not even ask me to sit down, though he had comfortably buried himself in a large and well padded armchair. Mr. Annesley began to explain the purport of our visit. It was barely finished, when Mr. Rufus condescended to turn to me.
“Well, my dear,” he said, “Mr. Annesley speaks very highly of you, and your appearance is decidedly in your favor. You can read music at sight, I suppose?”
I nodded.
“And sing?”
I nodded again.
“Well,” he continued, “you've just looked in at an opportune time. I've got to fill the chorus of a company that's just going out, and if you care to have the job, you can. Thirty shilling a week you begin on, but a girl like you ought not to stop long at that. Now, I shall expect you here at 11:30 on Monday to meet Mr. Restall, the manager. Good-bye, Miss La Mar, you'd better get out this way, and if you like, when you come again, you can come up this back staircase; ring the bell at the bottom, and you'll be let in. Mind you, this is a special favor.”
I accepted the offer of the engagement; as a matter of fact, I had come prepared to accept anything, and left Mr. Rufus by his private staircase. And so, in this way, I put my foot on the first rung of the dramatic ladder.
Annesley met me again outside, and asked me to have a drink with him. I wasn't very anxious to go into a public bar, but from what I saw of the ladies who were to be my theatrical companions, I gathered that it was a pretty usual thing to do. What would my reverend father, I wondered, have thought of his little daughter, had he watched her through the threshold of that glittering rendezvous.
We went into a small compartment, which we had to ourselves-in fact there was little room for anyone else there-and after a minute or two Mr. Annesley remembered with a start that he had left his notebook in the agent's office. “God forbid that anyone look into it,” he exclaimed, and then begged me to wait while he went back to Rufus'.
I could scarcely refuse, so sat perched on my high stool, sipping my whiskey and soda, and watching as well as I could the flirtations of the pretty barmaids and the customers in the other little boxes. Suddenly I became aware of a low toned conversation in the next compartment to mine, and by reason of a crack in the dividing wall. I could hardly help hearing it.
The man talking were obviously actors, and their conversation dealt with the theatrical tours they had just returned from. I give it just as it came from their lips, bad language and all. It was a revelation to me; I had not supposed before that any class of men could be so utterly mean in giving away the secrets of favors received from the other sex.
Said actor No. 1: “How did you get on with the girls in your show? Had a pretty warm time, I suppose?”
“My word, they were warm ones,” was the answer. “I started out meaning to live alone, but before two weeks, I had keeping house for me little Dolly Tesser.”
“I know her-pretty girl.”
“You're right; and you should see her with her clothes off, old man! A perfect peach, I can assure you. She was a bit shy at first, but I soon taught her all the tricks. My word, she is a bloody fine fuck!”
“Young, isn't she?”
“Oh, quite a kid, about seventeen-over the legal age though-you don't catch me making any mistake of that sort again. She wasn't a virgin, she'd been wrong with a conductor in the Gay Coquette crowd.”
“What, that syphilitic beast?”
“He hasn't got it really, but talking syph, have you heard the tale of Humphreys and his landlady's daughter?”
“No.”
“Well, he struck a place with an uncommonly pretty girl to wait. She was the landlady's daughter, and he hadn't been in the room three days before he was into her. Then on the fourth day, she didn't show up. He asked the old woman what was the matter.”
“Oh, Mary's very bad,” she said, “we've had to send her to the doctor, he says she's got syphilis.”
“You can bet old Humphreys nipped round to the chemist pretty sharp, bout a bottle of black wash and kept bathing the old man all day. On the next day however, the old girl turns to him as she's taking away his breakfast and says: “Oh, I made a mistake-n what I told you about Mary yesterday, it is erysipelas.”
At that moment Annesley returned, so I was spared any more from the actors on the other side of the bar.
Annesley wanted me to go back to the office with him, but I was too excited at the prospect of my engagement and I wanted to hurry home to tell Madame Karl-but I did not get back.
It happened like this. There was the usual block to the Strand traffic at the bottom corner of the street, and, gazing idly out of my hansom, I saw the long haired poet with whom I had behaved so oddly during the darkness at the musician's flat. He saw me too, and fled recklessly through traffic to gain my side; he asked no invitation, but seating himself murmured: “This is indeed a direct intervention of providence,' and told the cabman an address which I surmised to be that of his flat-it turned out to be so.
We drove rapidly down the Strand, and went down Arundel Street, in which street, the poet said he had a nest that almost touched the sky. It certainly nearly did, and as that particular block of buildings boasted no lift, it was a tired and panting little Blanche that at length gained the sixth floor. The poet apologized for the absence of the elevator, but immediately afterwards congratulated himself on none being there, for having a lift, he said, means also having a porter, and porters are horrid gossipy scandal mongering beings.
The front door passed, we found ourselves in a small hall, almost dark, save for the little light it gained from a heavily shaded electric globe which shed a discreet radiance upon an admirable painting of the Venus. A touch from the poet's fingers caused me to halt before the picture, and, as I gazed on it I felt his arms tighten round my waist, and his lips press gently upon my neck.
Here in this room was decadence indeed; all heavy curtains, little of the light of the day, heavy scents again, and soft cushions everywhere. I sank down on a luxurious couch and waited events. He crouched at my side and began to kiss me; very slowly, but very deliriously and lovingly; his breath was scented with some pleasant Oriental flavor, a flavor which soothed my nostrils. Slowly his hand made its way over my calves and over my drawers; at the some time that he was feeling for the bare flesh of my thigh I was beginning to fumble with his buttons, and almost at the same moment that his fingers touched my clitoris, I had the naked flesh of his penis in my hand. It was very large and stout, a legacy of his north country parentage doubtless-and it throbbed amazingly.
For a few moments we felt each other without a word, overcome by our delicious sensations-and I made the next step toward a nearer intimacy by undoing his braces and buttons and sliding the front part of his trousers down till I could let my hand wander underneath his balls. That stung him into action. He freed himself from me, stood up and began to undress rapidly; in about a moment he stood before me stark naked and another moment saw me in the same condition.
We had only one fuck, but we lay there naked for hours, kissing and talking. I wanted more, and I hinted for it, but he would not. “Another time, little girl,” was all he would vouchsafe. At last the falling shadows warned me that I must get back to Madame Karl, and I let him dress me. He gave me a little miniature on ivory of himself, and made an appointment for that day week, the day which coincided with my first rehearsal with the Restall Company. I made him get me a cab, and gave the Jermyn Street address. I felt full of lust as I sat back on the cushions of the hansom, and suddenly as we came into Trafalgar Square, the remembrance of the woman I had met that night of my first arrival at school, her invitation and her address came back to me. I recollected her promise to find me a dress, should I come to see her. Without a moments further thought I pushed the trap and gave the driver her street and number.
PART II
CHAPTER THREE
I was put down before a plain looking house in the midst of a row of equally plain looking houses. A pretty maid servant answered the bell, and seemed a little doubtful when I asked to see Miss Clarence, the name of my
