iii

Dreams of luxurious motor-cars, and footmen with fur capes and long fawn-coloured overcoats, holding fur rugs to cover her knees, were now constant in Sally's mind. She saw such things occasionally in Regent Street, and loved to look in at the windows of motor broughams upholstered in fawn-coloured corduroy, with arm straps and little hanging vases of fresh flowers. The freshness of these cars was her delight. She had no notion of the income it was necessary to have in order to possess such cars, with their attendant footman and chauffeur; but that income, whatever it was, became her ideal. Money! Lots of money! With money you could have comfort. When she said that, and was warned by conventional wiseacres that money did not produce happiness, she sneered at the timid ones. "Bet I'd be happy," she said. "What's happiness?" She wondered what it was. For her it had been oblivion in Toby's arms. It was so no longer. That was not all she desired. It was not by any means all. And she shrank more and more strongly from a life of squalid toil such as her mother had had—such as she would still have had if Mr. Minto had been a sober man. All her life she had slaved and slaved, and now she was worn out with it. Not for Sally! She had other plans. She had gone to the West End, and the West End was in her blood. She was looking round at life with some of her old calculating determination to exploit it. The death of her father, the passion for Toby,—these had distracted her. With increasing confidence in her position at Madam's, and a new sense of what money could actually do in the way of procuring food and clothes and ordinary or extraordinary physical comforts, Sally had returned to her old faith. She began to have a little money to buy things for herself. Once or twice Miss Summers gave her quite good-sized pieces of material, and there were always scraps to be gathered and utilized. And Sally was enabled to dress carefully. She became the smartest of the girls in the room, for she had a natural sense of smartness. The other girls did not like her, but they all envied her and admired her. It was not that she was unpopular; but that they felt in her the hard determination to get on, and were resentful of her manifest ability to achieve what she meant to do.

The other girls were all sorted out in Sally's mind. There was not one of them into whose nature she had not some biting insight. She had become so practised that she knew all their dresses (as of course all the others did, so that a new one was an event), and knew what everything they owned had cost. She could recognise anything that had been dyed, any brooch or adornment, any stockings. She would have made a good house-detective. But she never told tales. If she knew, she knew, and that was all. It was not for Sally to play the policeman. All knowledge went into her memory. It would be devastatingly produced on the occasion of a row, but Sally rarely quarrelled. With her, nothing ever came to a quarrel. There was no need for it to do so. She was neither jealous nor censorious. One does not quarrel with one who neither loves nor blames nor is stupid or too anxious to show cleverness. Sally merely "was," and the other girls knew it. For this reason she was not liked, but neither was she feared or unpopular. They did not hide things from her, but they did not show them eagerly. Sally was Sally. She enjoyed being Sally. She meant always to be Sally.

And at last there came into Sally's life, when she had been at Madame Gala's for about six months, a new interest, and a singular one. One day, when they were all working very hard, and the electric light was on, Madame came into the workroom with another person. And this person was a young man with a grey, thin face, rather tall and stooping, with a hesitating manner, and a general air of weakness. He followed Madame Gala round the room in an idle way, nodding to several of the girls; and Sally thought he had a very attractive smile. She found him looking at herself with a pair of large soft brown eyes, like chocolate which has been in a warm place. It was a rather dumb look. A little nick came between Sally's brows. She was busy making an inventory of the young man visitor's traits, his features, his clothes. He dressed well, and he was not bad-looking. With more stamina he might have been almost handsome; but he was obviously not in good health. The stoop, the vagueness of all his movements, his soft eye, all betokened as much. Sally turned to Muriel Barrett, who worked next to her.

"Who's he?" she asked, indicating the stranger.

"That's Bertram ... Madame's son. Mr. Merrick, his real name is. But we call him Gaga."

"Wodjer call him that for?" asked Sally. "Isn't he right in his head?"

"Oo, well one of the gels—she's gone now, Mary Smith,—made it up. She said he was Mr. Gala, you know. Then she called him Bertie Gaga, for fun; and it got to Gaga. I never spoken to him, so I don't know. Look out, he's looking at us. Oo, I believe he's got a crush on you, Sally."

Presently the young man followed his mother out of the room, and there was a little buzz when they were gone. The girls leaned together, and whispered, laughing among themselves. Muriel Barrett turned again to Sally, and became confidential. She herself was a pink, snub-nosed blonde, with untidy hair, who was always sniffing over her work. She jerked her head at Rose Anstey, the tall dark girl whom Sally had noticed when first she came.

"Rose thought he was in love with her once," Muriel said. "Well, he was, a bit; but not as much as she thought. I mean, he used to look at her, and all that, but he never give her anything, or took her out. I think ... you know ... she's a bit struck on him. That's more like it. She thinks he's a very tall handsome man. Well, he's not my taste. Funny, if you're tall, I s'pose you want a tall man to fall in love with you. It's different, being small, I suppose. My Elf's only about inch taller than me. You can't hardly see there's any difference between us. If I've got my hair frizzed he looks...."

Muriel went on talking. Sally took a glance at Rose, who, with eyes downcast, was sewing rapidly. Sally wished she had known that about Rose and Gaga while he was in the room: then she would have been able to look at Rose and make up her mind about that affair. She did not suppose really that there was anything in it, either way. Muriel was a little fool—like a little pink pig. That was just what she was like. And she chattered like a monkey. She had said that because he looked at her twice Gaga had got a crush on Sally. Well, Sally didn't mind. He could have any old crush he liked, for all she cared. Gaga was dismissed from her immediate attention, although she sometimes recollected a pair of soft brown eyes, that made her want to say "Moo" as if in response to their dumb longing.

The outcome of this visit, which occurred towards the end of May, was a day's outing for the girls at the beginning of June. They all went into the country by train, on a day which at first promised to be typical of all days unfortunately chosen for staff outings, but which cheered up later and became brilliantly fine. Only the girls were there, with Miss Summers and another forewoman, Miss Rapson, to see that nobody fell into mischief. They had a good picnic lunch in woods, and ran or walked or sat about all the afternoon, until it was time for tea. They then trooped into an hotel in which a room had been engaged, and scrimmaged for places round a big table. The tea was an enormous meal: Sally, who had not hitherto enjoyed herself any more than most of the other girls had noisily done, felt herself grown to twice her normal size. It was the biggest meal she had ever eaten, and there were cream and milk and sugar, and there were cakes and lettuce and jam and all sorts of other encouragements to appetite. And every time anybody laughed the sound went up to the varnished rafters, and billowed so much that the two elder women had at last to break in upon a laughter competition. Sally held aloof from the laughter, scornfully regarding the laughers. She had been rather serious all day.

And when the noise and fun were at their height Madam and Gaga and another man and woman came into the room, having motored to the hotel, taken their tea in another room, and determined to join the party. The tea had been so late, and so prolonged, that it was already nearly eight o'clock, and as the sky had grown overcast and the day was drawing to a close the lights suddenly popped up to illumine the faces of both feasters and visitors. A piano was opened at the far end of the room, and the woman who was with Madam sat down at it and began to play. But only one or two of the girls danced: the others had eaten too much to be able to do so. Then Rose sang a song, in which she said that her heart was aching and breaking at somebody's forsaking, and the girls looked at one another significantly; and there were more songs, and the girls sat back in their chairs with flushed faces, and each of them in turn seemed to be doing something to entertain the party. With a bored feeling, Sally was sipping her last cup of tea, when she became aware that Gaga had taken the chair next to her, and with his chocolate eyes was looking pleadingly into her face.

"Don't you sing?" he asked. "I wish you'd sing."

"I got no music," said Sally.

"Mrs. Roach would be able to make an accompaniment. She understands music very well—if you hummed her a song. I wish you'd sing."

Sally rose to her feet. The other girls all watched her with narrowed eyes. She was wearing such a pretty dress of light grey cotton poplin that she looked smarter than ever, they thought—in fact, almost pretty. She went close to the piano, and spoke to the pianist. "Oo, swank!" whispered the girls, when they saw that Sally was to play her own accompaniment. It was a thing none of them could have done.

"'When you and I go down the love path together,

Birds shall be singing and the day so long....'"

sang Sally, in her clear voice, and made everybody arch their brows in surprise.

"'Your heart mine, and mine in your keeping,

List while I sing to you love's tender song.

Ah, love, have done with your repining,

See how the day is clear;

Heart of my heart,

On your fond heart reclining

Dear, oh my Dear....'"

She played with care, and struck no false notes. She sang her best. Her voice was the best voice of the afternoon, a mezzo-soprano, but with clear upper register and a fulness that suggested training. It was not a great performance, but it thrilled the others. Sally had triumphed. With one accord the girls clapped.

"My best worker," said Miss Summers, rubbing her cold nose and turning to the accompanist of the afternoon.

"A clever little girl," agreed her neighbour.

But Gaga was stupefied. He had remained in the chair next to Sally's, and when she resumed her place his mouth was still open with delight and admiration. Again he leaned forward, and she met his melting chocolate eyes.

"That was beautiful," he said, in a low tone of commendation. "Beautiful!"

"Glad you liked it," she said, almost brusquely. Instinctively she shot a glance in Rose's direction. Rose, her cheeks mantling, was observing the two with interest. Sally's brain clicked an impression, and she listened to a stammering from Gaga which aroused her contempt. "He's hardly a man at all," she thought. "He's soppy. Rose can have him. I wish her joy of him. She can have him—and twenty like him, if she wants.... I don't know so much about that. Why should she? She's stuck up. Why shouldn't I have some fun, if I want to? It's nothing to do with Rose Anstey what I do, and what Gaga does...."

Her demand was unanswerable, because it was addressed to one who did not habitually withdraw herself lest she should give pain to others. If Rose was jealous, that showed the sort of cat she was. And in any case, who was Rose? Sally was bright in her responses to the soft voice, so that Gaga was pleased; but the girls could all see that her manner was cool, and not the flustered eagerness of a beggar. Rose's neighbour whispered. When the evening was over and Gaga and his mother had gone, and the girls had all piled into two railway compartments, somebody, whose voice was unrecognisable in the darkness, called from the other carriage:

"What price Gaga on the love path? Whey!"

There was great laughter. Even Sally joined in it. Going home, the other girls in her carriage all insisted upon hearing the song again, and as they all had the quick ear of Cockneys they could sing it in chorus by the time the train reached its journey's end. Sally had become, for a time, the heroine of the occasion. Only Rose, in the other carriage, had made her protest against the song and its singer.

"Love path!" she said, in a warm voice of indignation. "She's nothing but a cocket—a white-faced cocket. That's what she is. She nothing but a white-faced cocket, that Sally Minto!"

From that time onward that was Sally's name among the girls—"Cocket," or "White-faced Cocket." Rose had coined the phrase which would stick. When Sally heard her name the next day, through Muriel's indiscretion, she looked over at Rose with pinched nostrils and a little dry smile. She was flattered. The name was the product of Rose's jealousy and injured vanity; but it was life to Sally, for it was a testimony—the first she had ever had—to her charm and her dangerousness.