Europe -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction; Love stories
I said I was not sure. I was very surprised--a caller for Gerald March!
“If we look up,” I said, “we can see by his lights if he is in.” And I
stepped out into the lane, and the green hat and I stared up at the
topmost windows of the grubby little house.
“There’s no light _there_,” she said. “I suppose the light below is
yours....”
“There is,” I said, “but it’s very faint. He’s in all right.”
Still she looked up, thoughtfully. She was tall, not very tall, but as
tall as becomes a woman. Her hair, in the shadow of her hat, may have
been any colour, but I dared swear that there was a tawny whisper to it.
And it seemed to dance, from beneath her hat, a very formal dance on her
cheeks. One had, with her, a sense of the conventions; and that she had
just been playing six sets of tennis.
“If I look surprised,” I said, “that is because you are the first caller
Gerald March has ever had.”
She seemed to smile, faintly, as one might in the way of politeness.
Otherwise she did not seem to be given to smiling.
“He’s my brother,” she said, as though explaining herself, the hour,
everything. “It’s very nice of you to have opened the door....”
I was listening, oh, intently! One had to, to make out what she was
saying. Then the voice suddenly expired and one was left standing there,
listening to nothing, unprepared to say anything. It was, you can see,
rather silly; but one got used to it.
“Oh,” I said, “Gerald wouldn’t open a door! He never opens doors....”
She looked vaguely about our lane. I was proud of our lane at that
moment, for it set off the colour of her hat so well. There was no
doubt but that she was tired. Seven sets, possibly. Her eyes seemed at
last to find the car of the flying silver stork.
“That car ... I suppose it will be all right there?”
She seemed to me to lack a proper pride in her car. I said I thought it
would be quite all right there, as though a Hispano-Suiza was a usual
sight near my door; and I suggested that maybe I had better see her
upstairs to her brother’s flat, as it was the top flat and there were no
lights on the stairs. But she appeared to be in no hurry. Thoughtful she
was. She said dimly: “You are very kind....”
One somehow gathered from her voice that her face was very small.
“I’ve often wanted,” she murmured, looking about, “to live in this
place. You know, vaguely....”
“Of course, vaguely,” I said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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