Stories Read Free

song in stage cockney, and George feltthat she was expecting the other figure in the mirror to sing with her; she was singing at the mirror as if she expected an answer.
    “That’s very good, dear,” he broke in quickly, for he was upset, though he did not know why. “Very good indeed.” He was relieved when she broke off and came away from the mirror, so that the uncanny shadow of her went away.
    “Would you like me to speak to someone for you, dear? It might help. You know how things are in the theatre,” he suggested apologetically.
    “I don’t maind if I dew,” she said in the stage cockney of her act; and for a moment her face flashed into a mocking, reckless, gaminlike charm. “Perhaps I’d better change back into my skirt?” she suggested. “More natural-like for a nurse, ain’t it?”
    But he said he liked her in her tight black trousers, and now she always wore them, and her neat little shirts; and she moved about the flat as a charming feminine boy, chattering to him about the plays she had had small parts in and about the big actors and actresses and producers she had spoken to, who were, of course, George’s friends or, at least, equals. George sat up against his pillows and listened and watched, and his heart ached. He remained in bed longer than there was need, because he did not want her to go. When he transferred himself to a big chair, he said: “You mustn’t think you’re bound to stay here, dear, if there’s somewhere else you’d rather go.” To which she replied, with a wide flash of her black eyes, “But I’m resting, darling, resting. I’ve nothing better to do with myself.” And then: “Oh aren’t I awful, the things wot I sy?”
    “But you do like being here? You don’t mind being here with me, dear?” he insisted.
    There was the briefest pause. She said: “Yes, oddly enough I do like it.” The “oddly enough” was accompanied by a quick, half-laughing, almost flirtatious glance; and for the first time in many months the pressure of loneliness eased around George’s heart.
    Now it was a happiness to him because when the distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the theatre or of letters came to see him, Bobby became a cool, silky little hostess; and the instant they had gone she relapsed into urchin charm. It was a proof of their intimacy. Sometimes he took her out to dinner or to the theatre. When she dressed up she wore bold,fashionable clothes and moved with the insolence of a mannequin; and George moved beside her, smiling fondly, waiting for the moment when the black, reckless, freebooting eyes would flash up out of the languid stare of the woman presenting herself for admiration, exchanging with him amusement at her posing, amusement at the world; promising him that soon, when they got back to the apartment, by themselves, she would again become the dear little girl or the gallant, charming waif.
    Sometimes, sitting in the dim room at night, he would let his hand close over the thin point of her shoulder; sometimes, when they said goodnight, he bent to kiss her, and she lowered her head, so that his lips encountered her demure, willing forehead.
    George told himself that she was unawakened. It was a phrase that had been the prelude to a dozen warm discoveries in the past. He told himself that she knew nothing of what she might be. She had been married, it seemed—she dropped this information once, in the course of an anecdote about the theatre; but George had known women in plenty who after years of marriage had been unawakened. George asked her to marry him; and she lifted her small sleek head with an animal’s startled turn and said: “Why do you want to marry me?”
    “Because I like being with you, dear. I love being with you.”
    “Well, I like being with you.” It had a questioning sound. She was questioning herself? “Strainge,” she said in cockney, laughing. “Strainge but trew.”
    The wedding was to be a small one, but there was a lot about it in