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Updated: June 27, 2025
"Well, that is what they are playing to-night," Swetenham assured her, "and I hear it is Miss Bellairs' best part. She is good, mind you, in most things, and there is a girl who dances top-hole." "I don't know why we have never heard of it before," Mrs. Bevis meandered gently on; "it is so clever of you, Mrs. Grant, to have found that there was a theatre in Sevenoaks at all.
Fanny, attired in a long silk dressing wrap, sat on a low chair by the only table, very busy with a grease-pot and a soft rag removing the paint from her face. She turned to smile at Swetenham and held out her hand to Dick when he was introduced with a disarming air of absolute frankness.
Swetenham was entirely immersed in amusing and being amused by Fanny, and Joan set herself Dick fancied it was deliberately to talk and laugh. It was almost as if she were afraid of any silence that might fall between them. He did not help her very much; he was content to watch her.
He had her to himself on the way home, for Fanny had elected to go for a spin in Swetenham's side-car, suggesting that Dick and Joan should go home and wait up for them. "We shan't be long," Swetenham assured Dick, remembering too late his promise to take the other man home, "and it is all right waiting there, they have got a sitting-room."
Among the spectators of the ceremony was Captain Swetenham, an English officer taken prisoner a few days before while on his way to assume the command of Fort William.
In this he proved correct, for the Merry Widow girl could sing, and she could also act. Fanny's prettiness, her quick, light way of moving, shone out in contrast to her surroundings. High and sweet above the uncertain accompaniment her voice rose triumphant. The back of the house thundered with applause at the end of her song. "Now wait," announced Swetenham, "the girl who dances comes on here.
"Thank you," Dick was saying, speaking almost mechanically, "I should like to come very much. It doesn't in the least matter about getting home." Swetenham glanced at him again. "If it comes to that," he said, "I have a motor-bike I could run you in on." The fellow, it suddenly dawned on him, had gone clean off his head about one of the girls.
"If you can arrange to stay on after the show," he said, "and would care to, I could take you round and introduce you to those two girls, the one who dances and Miss Bellairs." "Miss Bellairs," Dick repeated stupidly, his mind was grappling with a far bigger problem than young Swetenham could guess at.
The boy with a grin threw the door open and indicated with his thumb that Swetenham and Dick might advance. He winked at them as they passed him, a fund of malignant impudence in his eyes. The room inside was small and scattered with a profusion of clothes.
They were to drive out to a farmhouse that Swetenham knew of, where you got the most delicious jam for tea. Joan was a little shy of Dick to begin with, sitting beside him tongue-tied, and never letting her eyes meet his. From time to time, when he was busy with the steering, she would steal a glance at him from under her lashes.
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