grubby little house.
{17}
“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{18} 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.
{18}
“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
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