Out of it all Juliet exploded, throwing herself at Glenda and flinging her arms around her neck.
'She wants me to do it again!' she panted. 'She says I could go to Quirm and Genua, even! She says she'll pay me more if I don't work for no one else and the world is an oyster. I never knew that.'
'But you've already got a steady job in the kitchen... ' said Glenda, only three-quarters of her way into consciousness. Later, more often than she liked, she remembered saying those words while the applause thundered all around them.
There was a gentle pressure on her shoulder, and here was one of the interchangeable young women with a tray. 'Madame sends her compliments, miss, and would like to invite you and Miss Juliet to join her in her private boudoir.'
'That's nice of her, but I think we should be getting - A boudoir, you say?'
'Oh yes. And would you like another drink? It's a celebration, after all.'
Glenda looked around at the chattering, laughing and, above all, drinking crowd. The place felt like an oven.
'All right, but not that sherry, thank you all the same. Have you got something very cold and fizzy?'
'Why, yes, miss. Lots.' The girl produced a large bottle and expertly filled a tall fluted glass with, apparently, bubbles. When Glenda drank it, the bubbles filled her, too.
'Mm, quite nice,' she ventured. 'A bit like lemonade grown up.'
'That's how Madame drinks it, certainly.'
'Er, this boudoir,' Glenda tried, following the girl rather unsteadily. 'How big is it?'
'Oh, pretty large, I think. There must be about forty people in there already.'
'Really? That's a big boudoir.' Well, thank goodness, Glenda thought. That at least is sorted out. They really ought to put proper explanations in these novels.
She had never been sure, given that she had no idea what sort of thing a boudoir was, what sort of thing you would find in it when you did. She found that it contained people, heat and flowers-not flowers in bunches, but in pillars and towering stacks, filling most of the air with clouds of sticky perfume while the people below filled the rest of it with words, tightly packed. No one could possibly hear what they were saying, Glenda told herself, but perhaps that wasn't important. Perhaps what was important was being there to be seen to say it.
The crowd parted, and she saw Juliet, still in the glittering outfit, still in the beard... being there. Salamanders were flashing on and off, which meant people with iconographs, didn't it? The trashy papers were full of people glittering for the picture. She had no time for them. What made it worse was that her disapproval mattered not a fig to anyone. The people glittered anyway. And here was Juliet, glittering most of all.
'I think I could do with a little fresh air,' she mumbled.
Her guide led her gently to an unobtrusive doorway. 'Restrooms through here, ma'am.' And they were
17
