'Never you mind, Vic,' said b.u.t.ty drawing her towards him.

Victoria slipped from his grasp, ran to the stairs, but remembered to climb them in a natural and leisurely manner.

'Cool, very cool,' said b.u.t.ty, approvingly, 'fine girl, fine girl.' He pa.s.sed his tongue over his lips, which had suddenly gone dry.

When Victoria returned to her seat Lottie had not moved; Bella sat deep in her own despair, but, behind the counter, Cora and Gladys were fixing two stern pairs of eyes upon the favourite.

CHAPTER XV

'YES, sir, yes sir; I've got your order,' cried Victoria to a middle aged man, whose face reddened with every minute of waiting. 'Steak, sir?

Yes, sir, that'll be eight minutes. And sautees, yes sir. Gladys, send d.i.c.ky up to four. What was yours, sir? Wing twopence extra. No bread?

Oh, sorry, sir, thought you said Worcester.'

Victoria dashed away to the counter. This was the busy hour. In her brain a hurtle of food stuffs and condiments automatically sorted itself out.

'Now then, hurry up with that chop,' she snapped, thrusting her head almost through the kitchen window.

''Oo are you,' growled the cook over her shoulder. 'Empress of Germany?

I don't think.'

'Oh, shut it, Maria, hand it over; now then Cora, where you pushing to?'

Victoria edged Cora back from the window, seized the chop and rushed back to her tables.

The bustle increased; it was close on one o'clock, an hour when the slaves drop their oars, and for a while leave the thwarts of many groans. The Rosebud had nearly filled up. Almost every table was occupied by young men, most of them reading a paper propped up against a cruet, some a Temple Cla.s.sic, its pages kept open by the weight of the plate edge. A steady hum of talk came from those who did not read, and, mingled with the clatter of knives and forks, produced that atmosphere of mongrel sound that floats into the ears like a restless wave.

Victoria stepped briskly between the tables, collecting orders, deftly making out bill after bill, smoothing tempers ruffled here and there by a wrongful attribution of food.

'Yes sir, cutlets. No veg? Cauli? Yes sir.'

She almost ran up and down as half-past one struck and the young men asked for coffees, small coffees, small blacks, china teas. From time to time she could breathe and linger for some seconds by a youth who audaciously played with the pencil and foil suspended from her waist. Or she exchanged a pleasantry.

'Now then, Nevy, none of your larks.' Victoria turned round sharply and caught a hand engaged in forcing a piece of sugar into her belt.

Nevy, otherwise Neville Brown, laughed and held her hand the s.p.a.ce of a second. 'I love my love with a V . . .' he began, looking up at her, his blue eyes shining.

'Chuck it or I'll tell your mother,' said Victoria, smiling too. She withdrew her hand and turned away.

'Oh, I say, Vic, don't go, wait a bit,' cried Neville, 'I want, now what did I want?'

'Sure I don't know,' said Victoria, 'you never said what you wanted.

Want me to make up your mind for you?'

'Do, Vic, let our minds be one,' said Neville.

Victoria looked at him approvingly. Neville Brown deserved the nickname of 'Beauty,' which had clung to him since he left school. Brown wavy hair, features so clean cut as to appear almost effeminate, a broad pointed jaw, all combined to make him the schoolgirl's dream. Set off by his fair and slightly sunburnt face, his blue eyes sparkled with mischief.

'Well, then, special and cream. Sixpence and serve you right.'

She laughed and stepped briskly away to the counter.

'You're in luck, Beauty,' said his neighbour with a sardonic air.

'Oh, it's no go, James,' replied Brown, 'straight as they make them.'

'Don't say she's not. But if I weren't a married man, I'd go for her baldheaded.'

'Guess you would, Jimmy,' said Beauty, laughing, 'but you'd be wasting your time. You wouldn't get anything out of her.'

'Don't you be too sure,' said Jimmy meaningly. He pa.s.sed his hand reflectively over his shaven lips.

'Well, well,' said Brown, 'p'raps I'm not an Apollo like you, Jimmy.'

Jimmy smiled complacently. He was a tall slim youth, well groomed about the head, doggy about the collar and tie, neatly dressed in Scotch tweed. His steady grey eyes and firm mouth, a little set and rigid, the impeccability of all about him, had stamped business upon his face as upon his clothes.

'Oh, I can't queer your pitch, Beauty,' he said a little grimly. 'I know you, you low dog.'

Beauty laughed at the epithet. 'You've got no poetry about you, you North Country chaps, when a girl's as lovely as Victoria--'

'As lovely as Victoria,' he repeated a little louder as Victoria laid the cup of coffee before him.

'I know all about that,' said Victoria coolly, 'you don't come it over me like that, Nevy.'

'Cruel, cruel girl,' sighed Neville. 'Ah, if you only knew what I feel----'

Victoria put her hand on the tablecloth and, for a moment, looked down into Neville's blue eyes.

'You oughtn't to be allowed out,' she p.r.o.nounced, 'you aren't safe.'

Jimmy got up as if he had been sitting on a suddenly released spring.

'Spoon away both of you,' he said smoothly, 'I'm going over to Parsons'

to buy a racquet. Coming, Beauty? No, thought as much. Ta-ta, Vic.

Excuse me. Steak and kidney pie is tenpence, not a shilling. Cheer oh!

Beauty.'

'He's a rum one,' said Victoria, reflectively, as Jimmy pa.s.sed the cash desk.

'Jimmy? oh, he's all right,' said Neville, 'but look here Vic, I want to speak to you. Let's go on the bust to-night. Dinner at the New Gaiety and the theatre. What d'you think?'

Victoria looked at him for a second.

'You are a cure, Nevy,' she said.

'Then that's a bargain?' said Brown, eagerly snapping up her non-refusal. 'Meet me at Strand Tube Station half-past seven. You're off to-night, I know.'