Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/74

 Queenie. She lifted her voice and wailed loudly in great compassion for them and for herself.

Tonight they did not go out by the back door as usual but with conscious dignity through the front entrance. Jimmy Sykes and Edwin Silk were waiting in the hall for them. Jimmy wore a navy-blue serge suit and white tie. Silk appeared in wrinkled evening clothes, a flat opera hat shadowing his haggard face. Pearl broke into embarrassed giggles as he moved to her side through the crowd. Men stopped talking and drinking to look at the girls and to offer bantering advice to them and their escorts. Bill Bastien came out of the bar and said in a low tone to Annie—

"I'll be over after closing time, so don't fill your card."

Annie beamed up at him, her whole face breaking into ripples of pleasure like a little lake over which hot, bright sunlight has suddenly burst.

Outside, on the porch, Kirke and Lovering were standing. "Are tha coomin' aht to the ball, Duncan?" asked Lovering.

"I micht."

"Well, luk 'ere, we'd better just walk along with the girls. They're in the hall." He could see through the narrow windows on either side of the front door.

"I've never taken servant geerls out yet," rejoined Kirke, lighting his pipe. The tiny blaze illumined his bright light eyes and pink cheek bones.

"My wife was a servant lass," said Lovering simply.

"Ah, but she was a veeluptuous one," sneered Kirke.

"Blast thy eyes!" growled Lovering. "I daresay you've got a servant girl wife of your own in the Old Land."