They ate outrageously of fearsome things. Yet over her third meringue
Connie Edwards broke down with lamentations for the lost powers of
youth.
"I can remember eating five of 'em," she said, "and coming home to a
tea of winkles and bloater paste. Oh Gawd! I'll be in my grave before
I can turn round."
She had been from the start in an unusually pensive and philosophic
mood--a trifle wide-eyed and even awe-struck. It seemed that the night
before the "French dame" had appeared unexpectedly during a
rehearsal--a peculiarly gingerless performance according to Connie's
account--and had watched from the wings awhile, and then, unasked and
apparently without premeditation, had broken in among them and at the
edge of the footlights, to a gaping, empty theatre, had danced and sung
a little song.
"A French song," Connie said solemnly. "Not a word of the blessed
thing could we understand, and yet we were all hugging ourselves. Not
pretty either--a mere bone and a yank of hair--and no more voice than a
sparrow. But you just went along too. Couldn't help it. And
afterwards we played up as though we liked it, and hadn't been plugging
at the rottenest show in England for the last ten weeks. And she
laughed and clapped her hands, and our tongues hung out we were that
pleased. She's It, friends. It. Gyp Labelle from the Folies Bergeres
and absolutely It."
Rufus Cosgrave rolled over on his face and lay blinking out of the long
grass like a sleepy, red-headed satyr.
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