“It was Eve who really created my impulse,” she told me, then: “Oh, here!” and I found I had an empty cigarette-case in my hand and that she was offering me hers. It was an oblong white-jade case, and chained to it by a double chain of gold was a hectagonal black onyx box which may or may not have held powder. One corner of the hectagonal black onyx was initialed in minute diamond letters: I.S. “Iris,” she said. “Iris Storm.” And she smiled, childishly, formally, saying: “You have been so nice, I had forgotten we didn’t know each other.” I told her my name, in that embarrassed way one always does tell any one one’s name, and we smoked a while in silence. She inhaled her smoke with a faint hiss, and her teeth were a regiment of even bits of rice-paper standing at attention, very smart and sharp. Teeth always give one ideas. These were imperious, dangerous teeth. On a middle one was wedged a small string of tobacco: it lay coiled there like a brown maggot, and when I told her about that she removed it with the nail of her small finger, and regarded it. She had a great talent for looking at nothing in particular, and that was the only likeness I could see between the twins: thoughtful they both were. Suddenly, from the tousled dark head on the table came a jumble of inarticulate words. She listened intently. Gerald shivered, but his face remained buried in his crossed arms. “He’s dreaming,” I said. She looked at me, and I thought there were tears in her eyes. But as they never fell, I am not sure. Thoughtful she was, smoking.... “Why does God do these things?” she asked in a suddenly strong, clear voice, a most surprising voice; but I said nothing, knowing nothing of God. “Let us go,” she said. “Shall I tell him you came?” She thought about that, looking at me. “Yes,” she said, “will you? Please. Just that I came. You see, Gerald doesn’t ... well,” she smiled somewhere in those eyes, “let us say he is against me....” We were in the doorway of the soiled room of the drunkard. I was going to switch out the light. Often I would come upstairs and switch out Gerald’s light. “Gerald,” she said suddenly, in that strong voice, and I thought of a prefect’s voice at school, down the corridor of a dormitory. “Good-bye to Gerald.” “You see,” she said to me, “Gerald and I are the last Marches, and we ought to stand together. Don’t you think so?” “Yes, you ought,” I said gravely. One hand, the hand of the great emerald, hung against her leather jacket. “Certainly you ought,” I said, and raised the hand to my lips. Her hand smelt dimly of petrol and cigarettes, and a scent whose name I shall now never know. “These defiant courtesies,” she said thoughtfully. “They’re very nice, I always say....” III