Summary

Fevvers and Lizzie, Fevvers’ foster mother, talk to Jack Walser in the dressing room after a show in London, her home city, which has welcomed her back with fervor and merchandising ideas.

Fevvers opens a bottle of champagne, a gift from a rich patron, and hands Walser a glass. Trying to keep his head on straight, he attempts to stow the glass discretely away, but ends up toppling a stack of papers and stockings. The scent of Fevvers’ room is cloying: dirty clothes, perfume, sweat, gas heat, greasepaint, and a faint, fishy odor from the ice recycled from a local fishmonger. Corsets, underpants and discarded clothes lay randomly around in the room. The blatant femininity makes Walser uncomfortable, but Fevvers ignores his discomfort.

Walser is well traveled but far from worldly. Originally from San Francisco, California, as a young man he stowed away on a...