Chapter IX: _Life, Art and Love_

Eileen Vaughan was, of course, perfectly familiar to Jenny, but the two
other girls who were to be her companions for several weeks had to be
much observed during the first half-hour of the journey north.

Madame Aldavini was in a first-class compartment, as she wanted to be
alone in order to work out on innumerable sheets of paper the
arrangement of a new ballet. So the Aldavini Quartette shared between
them the four corners of a third-class compartment. Jenny felt important
to the world, when she read on the slip pasted to the window: "Reserved
for Aldavini's Quartette, Euston to Glasgow." It was written in
looking-glass writing, to be sure, but that only made the slow
deciphering of it the more delightful.

However, it was read clearly at last, and Jenny turned round once more
to look at her companions. Immediately opposite was Valerie Duval--a
French girl with black fountains of hair, with full red lips and a
complexion that darkened from ivory to warm Southern roses when the
blood coursed to her cheeks. Her eyes glowed under heavy brown lids as
she talked very sweetly in a contralto French accent. Soon she took
Jenny on her knees and said:

"You will tell me all your secrets--yes?"

To which Jenny scoffingly answered:

"Secrets? I'm not one for secrets."

"But you will confide to me all your _passions_, your loves,--yes?"

"Love?" said Jenny, looking round over her shoulder at Valerie. "Love's
silly."

Valerie smiled.

The other new friend was Winnie Ambrose--raspberries and cream and
flaxen hair and dimpled chin and upper lip curling and a snub nose. She
was one of those girls who never suggest the presence of stays, who
always wear white blouses of crepe de chine, cut low round a plump neck.
They have bangles strung on their arms, and each one possesses a locket
containing the inadequate portrait of an inadequate young man. But
Winnie was _very_ nice, always ready for a joke.

The train swept them on northwards. Once, as it slowed to make a sharp
curve, Jenny looked out of the window and saw the great express, like a
line of dominoes with its black and white carriages. There was not much
to look at, however, as they cleft the gray December airs, as they
roared through echoing stations into tunnels and out again into the
dreary light. They ate lunch, and Jenny drank Bass out of a bottle and
spluttered and made queer faces and wrinkled up her gay, deep eyes