"Upon my word! Who would ever have expected to find you here?" Without changing her smile she murmured: "We're watched. He's coming this way."
The other girl's eyes signaled: "I get you!" She said loudly: "How are all the folks?"
The burly one brushed by, his foolish eyes looking everywhere but at them, his mouth pursed up to whistle.
When he had gone by, "Bull," murmured the black-eyed girl out of the corner of her mouth. "Pure-bred Jersey." Aloud she said vivaciously: "You must tell me all about everybody. Let's get out of this jam."
With a hand under Pen's elbow, she steered her out of the press. Crossing the aisle they struck into a side aisle, deserted for the moment. Here the man could not come close enough to overhear their talk without giving himself away completely. They could see him loitering in the main aisle uncertain what to do.
The black-eyed girl was an admirable actress. She kept up a running fire of questions: "How's Alfred? And the old man? And Maud?"
Pen's spirits rose fast. It was dangerous, and it was fun. A genuine smile replaced the mechanical one. She rattled off some kind of answers, surprised at her own talkativeness.
Meanwhile the two were busily sizing each other up, Pen with shy glances, the other with bold ones. Pen saw a little creature beautifully formed, very pretty too, with petulant, doll-like features, frankly made up. The idea of the make-up was not to imitate nature, but to create an original artistic effect. She was smartly dressed in a plain black silk slip confined by a beaded girdle, impudent little close-fitting hat, expensive gray slippers and stockings. She carried an exotic little beaded bag. She might have been anything or anybody almost. It is so hard to tell nowadays. Certainly she did not smack of the underworld as Pen imagined it. But Pen perhaps was not much of a judge.
On the other hand Pen could hardly have been mistaken for anything but what she was. There was a sort of open reticence in her, a high unaffectedness that was in her blood and could not be hidden nor imitated. With all her assurance the other girl resented it a little. Without changing her outward manner the black-eyed one said:
"Well, what's the big idea, Miss? I don't get you at all. Are you a bull yourself?"