After Emmy had hurried out of the room to change her dress, Alf stood, still apparently stupefied at the unscrupulous rush of Jenny’s feminine tactics, rubbing his hand against the back of his head.  He looked cautiously at Pa Blanchard, and from him back to the mysterious unknown who had so recently defeated his object.  Alf may or may not have prepared some kind of set speech of invitation on his way to the house.  Obviously it is a very difficult thing, where there are two girls in a family, to invite one of them and not the other to an evening’s orgy.  If it had not previously occurred to Alf to think of the difficulty quite as clearly as he was now being made to do, that must have been because he thought of Emmy as imbedded in domestic affairs.  After all, damn it, as he was thinking; if you want one girl it is rotten luck to be fobbed off with another.  Alf knew quite well the devastating phrase, at one time freely used as an irresistible quip (like “There’s hair” or “That’s all right, tell your mother; it’ll be ninepence”) by which one suggested disaster—­“And that spoilt his evening.”  The phrase was in his mind, horrible to feel.  Yet what could he have done in face of the direct assault? “Must be a gentleman.”  He could hardly have said, before Emmy:  “No, it’s you I want!” He began to think about Emmy.  She was all right—­a quiet little piece, and all that.  But she hadn’t got Jenny’s cheek!  That was it!  Jenny had got the devil’s own cheek, and this was an example of it.  But this was an unwelcome example of it.  He ruminated still further; until he found he was standing on one foot and rubbing the back of his head, just like any stage booby.

“Oh, damn!” he cried, putting his raised foot firmly on the ground and bringing his wandering fist down hard into the open palm of his other hand.

“Here, here!” protested Jenny, pretending to be scandalised.  “That’s not the sort of language to use before Pa!  He’s not used to it.  We’re awfully careful what we say when Pa’s here!”

“You’re making a fool of me!” spluttered Alf, glaring at her.  “That’s about the size of it!”

“What about your pa and ma!” she inquired, gibing at him.  “I’ve done nothing.  Why don’t you sit down.  Of course you feel a fool, standing.  I always do, when the manager sends for me.  Think I’m going to get the sack.”  She thought he was going to bellow at her:  “I hear they want more!” The mere notion of it made her smile, and Alf imagined that she was still laughing at her own manoeuvre or at her impertinent jest.

“What did you do it for?” he asked, coming to the table.

“Cause it was all floppy.  What did you think?  Why, the girls all talk about me wearing it so long.”

“I’m not talking about that,” he said, in a new voice of exasperated determination.  “You know what I’m talking about.  Oh, yes, you do!  I’m talking about those tickets.  And me.  And you!”