t the edge of one of her nails, and frowning. ''Kitty,'' I said now, ''for goodness'' sake, tell him what madness he is talking!''
She didn''t answer at first, but continued to chew distractedly at her fingertip. She looked from me to Walter, then back to me again, and narrowed her eyes.
''It might work,'' she said.
I stamped my foot. ''Now you have both lost your minds, entirely! Think what you''re saying. You come from families where everybody is an actor. You live all your lives in houses like this, where even the dam'' dog is a dancing one. Four months ago I was an oyster-girl in Whitstable!''
''Four months before Bessie Bellwood made her debut,'' Walter replied, .''she was a rabbit-skinner in the New Cut!1 He put his hand upon my arm. ''Nan,'' he said kindly, ''I am not pressing you, but let us see if this thing will work, at least. Will you just go and take a suit of Kitty''s, and try it on properly? And Kitty, you go and get fitted up, too. And then we''ll see what the two of you look like, side by side.''
I turned to Kitty. She gave a shrug. ''Why not?'' she said.
It seems strange to think that, in all my weeks of handling so many lovely costumes, I had never thought to try one on myself; but I had not. The piece of sport with the jacket and the boater had been a novel one, born of the gaiety of that marvellous morning; until then Kitty''s suits had seemed too handsome, too special - above all, too peculiarly hers, too fundamental to her own particular magic and swank - for me to fool with. I had cared for them and kept them neat; but I had never so much as held one up in front of me, before the glass. Now I found myself half-naked in our chilly bedroom, with Kitty beside me with a costume in her hand, and our roles quite reversed.