ps so that her brother, who was in the room across the passageway, might not hear: ''Nance, will you come out with me tonight?''
Tonight?'' I said, yawning, and frowning at the bacon, which I had put too wet into a too-hot pan, so that it hissed and steamed. ''Where to? Not collecting subscriptions again, surely?''
''Not subscriptions, no. Not work at all, in fact, but -pleasure.''
''Pleasure!'' I had never heard her say the word before, and it seemed, all of a sudden, a terribly lewd one. Perhaps she thought the same, for now she blushed a little, and took up a spoon and began to fiddle with it.
''There''s a public-house near Cable Street,'' she went on, ''with a ladies'' room in it. The girls call it "The Boy in the Boat. . .''"
''Oh yes?''
She looked once at me, and then away again. ''Yes. Annie will be there, she says, with a new friend of hers; and perhaps Ruth and Nora.''
411
''Ruth and Nora too!'' I said lightly: they were the two girlfriends who had turned out sweethearts. ''Is it to be all toms, then?''
To my surprise she nodded, quite seriously: ''Yes.''
All toms! The thought sent me into a fever. It was twelve months since I had last passed an evening in a room full of woman-lovers: I was not sure I still possessed the knack. What would I wear? What attitude would I strike? All toms! What would they make of me? And what would they make of Florence?