this place. You know, vaguely....”

“Of course, vaguely,” I said.

She looked at me, seemed to see me for the first time, seemed faintly surprised to find herself talking to me. I was surprised, too. Maybe it was the way her hair danced formally on her cheeks that made it look such a small face, but it seemed to me no larger than a small size in ladies’ handkerchiefs. That was why I was surprised. She stood carelessly, like the women in Georges Barbier’s almanacks, Falbalas et Fanfreluches, who know how to stand carelessly. Her hands were thrust into the pockets of a light brown leather jacket—pour le sport—which shone quite definitely in the lamplight: it was wide open at the{19} throat, and had a high collar of the fur of a few minks. I once had a friend who was a taxidermist, and that was how I knew that. One small red elephant marched across what I could see of her dress, which was dark and not pour le sport.

{19}

“Perhaps you are right,” she admitted doubtfully. Not that I had the faintest idea what she was talking about.

I went before her up the dark narrow stairs, sideways, lighting and dropping matches, after the custom of six years. There were three floors in the little house, but the first was untenanted except by mice. I wondered whether it would interest her if I told her I was leaving to-morrow, but I did not see why it should. She, after all, had probably just come back from foreign parts. About her, it was perfectly obvious, was the aura of many adventures. But I was looking on her in brotherly sort, interested in her because she was Gerald March’s sister. For that was a most deficient man in every other respect. Fancy, I thought. She said: “Oo, isn’t it dark!”

“Of course,” I said, striking yet another match against the wall, “I knew Gerald had a sister, but I had a vague idea, I don’t know why, that she was still at school....”

“I don’t suppose,” she said helpfully—stumbled slightly, I helped her—“that any one knows everything. Is that mice downstairs? Rats? Oo, really.... Gerald and I showed, once upon a time, a strong tendency to be twins, though there was a good hour between us, so I was told. I was at the tail end of the hour.” Slowly struggling up those dim, narrow, musty stairs, her green{20} hat now and then flaming in the matchlight, she gave one worthless information in a slightly husky, impersonal voice. As we came up to my landing I asked her if she had seen Gerald lately.

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