I was there at eleven thirty-five and had fifteen minutes in which to admire the frescoes on the wall.
Then Restall sailed in, to the accompaniment of much bowing and scraping on the part of the attendants, and a considerable addition to the civility shown me. I had been taken, I think, for a lady out on the pick up.
Restall, speaking and behaving in his usual restless, jerky manner, hustled me upstairs and found a table on the balcony.
The supper was a good one; but that is no great matter in the present story. What I want to talk about is that theatrical ball, my first.
Restall likes my dress. I think at first, after he had invited me, he had suffered some doubt as to whether I, being only newly engaged, would turn up in a costume sufficiently worthy of him and the occasion.
But I think that the delicious confection presented me for the ball by Madame Karl not only reassured him, but even astonished him. He kept turning to look at me with obvious pride as we entered the Harmonic theatre.
The Harmonic was delightfully arranged for the occasion. The ballroom was of course the stage, enclosed in a woodland scene. At the back perched on a built up mossy bank, was the orchestra, and the pit usually occupied by the orchestra, was filled for this occasion with flowering ferns, forming a hedge between the stage and auditorium. At intervals in the hedge were gaps, and through these gaps were gangways leading down into the stairs, much used as sitting out places by the dancers.
There were of course other sitting out places, and capital ones. The boxes for instance, the big ones on the pit and dress circle tier, though they were fairly easy to see into. Above them, much more private were the boxes on a level with the upper circle and still more delightful were the little boxes only designed to hold two, or at the most three, at the back of the dress circle. And you obtained a fair amount of privacy if you sat out in the gloom of the upper circle.
Restall was at once surrounded by a big crowd and after introducing me to one or two men, abandoned me at once. I was not destined however to linger as a wall flower; I attracted the attention with a nice big handsome gentleman and I was dancing to my delight.
Hardly a girl there that was not pretty, and nary a man who hadn't come to the theater with the manifest purpose of enjoying himself; there was no duty business. All the girls were all well dressed, and none of them was chary of showing the most of their upper-work charms. I marveled how some of them kept their bubbies within those dangerously decollette corsages; I know that I myself had more than once to lift a guardian hand to keep my own nipples from overflowing on to the dress coat of my partner. Not that he would have minded, I dare say.
One man managed to knock down my fan, and was clever enough to get his hand just on to my stocking in the act of picking it up, but I kicked his errant fingers away, and the boy-he was one of the youngest guardsmen possible-blushed and apologized. I had to wait for my supper partner for anything serious to happen.
Walker Bird, who arrived precisely at the supper hour, brought him up to me, and so fascinated was I by his eyes, his figure, and his generally distinguished appearance, that I threw over the man I really should have supped with, without a second thought, and accepted unhesitatingly his suggestion that it was about time all of us felt a little hungry. Walker left us with a murmured, “Keep a brace of pews for me and mine,” and caught us up at the door of the supper room-the big saloon bar transformed for the nonce into a palm embowered eating place-with a cute little chorister from the Harmonic on his arm. I recognized her in a tick, for were not her photographs in every print seller's window, and did not the evening papers keep stock headlines going for her breach of promise cases? She had on a dress worth at least a hundred pounds, and she greeted me simply, after the introduction, with Lord, I could at least speak a bit.
I supped gaily and well; the wine was exhilarating, the food first rate; the surroundings the gayest, and I had my supper partner's leg entwined round my left, and Walker's left leg round my right. It was a round table, and I have no doubt that the little chorister was being endeared in precisely the same manner. We had a quartette of Tsignnes for a separate supper orchestra, and their strains made my little head swim with naughty thoughts. All at once I felt I was sitting on something wet, and I knew that I had come involuntarily, so much so that I welcomed our little friend's suggestion after supper that we should go and put a puff on.
We were alone in the retiring room-“Gay ain't it old dear?” she said, as she drew a stick of red across her pretty little mouth, and then passed it on to me-“makes me feel hot as hell,” she passed her hand up her dress, “I thought as much,” she pursued, “I've spent-what a bleeding waste.”
In one of the W.C.'s I took the chance of wiping my underclothes as dry as possible, for I was in that stage of full bloodedness that I was absolutely determined to have a man that evening-even if I had to ask for it. And so much were the faces of the men altered since supper that I didn't think that event at all probable.
Near the door I found my supper partner and he led me at once into a valse, a deliciously suggestive thing, admirably rendered by the band. He too, was mad for a woman. There was no disguising that fact, for through my dress I could feel his swollen prick pressing against me, he had arranged it up his trousers, pointing to the navel-and I should say very nearly touching that spot, in the careful manner of the man wearing evening dress who realizes that he is likely to be overcome by the outward and visible sign of his manhood-and I don't deny that my little tummy pressed back.
We both danced well, both recklessly and with abandon, and whether it was that the other couples admired our performance so much that they wanted to witness it, or whether the other girls were nervous of becoming an obstacle to our wild career, at any rate we pretty soon had the floor to our own selves. I heard several complimentary remarks as we whirled by, and once I caught Restall's eye full, it bespoke admiration, and by the motion of his lips as he turned to speak to the man by his side, I had an inkling that he was informing the man of the fact that I was a member of his company, and that he, Restall, intended to sleep with me, he could have had me then and there if he had chosen to come and ask, and provide a place.
The music stopped suddenly, and my partner and I sank exhausted on to the nearest seat. As he fanned me, he whispered: “This is an uncomfortable sitting out place. I know one much better-shall we go?” and I only nodded my answer.
“This is the place I mean,” he said, when we paused before a curtained door, situated near the stage. He drew the curtain aside, and next minute I found myself in a cozy little room, and heard behind me the unmistakable sound of a key being turned in the lock.
The room was furnished mainly with a large sofa, the sort that has the ends made to flop down, and a number of theatrical photographs. I thought it was some sort of private sitting room, had I known more I should have guessed at once that it was a dressing room. The photographs of the celebrities were mostly women, and all signed.
As there was no other place to sit on I flopped on the sofa at once, and a moment later my partner was at my side, his arm tight around my waist, and his lips on my cheek.
I suppose it was the fact of my clerical descent that made me leap to my feet with a little noise of disapproval when I felt his fingers tickle the bare flesh above my petticoats or was it the fear that some one might come in — at any rate he took it for the latter, for he hastened to assure me that the door was locked.
“But,” I replied, still rather coy, “suppose any one should want to come in and sit out in this room, too?”