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.
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 almanacs, 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 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.
“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 tomorrow, 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 anyone 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 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.
“Not,” she said, whispered, “for years and years. Nearly ten, I think. Do you think that comes, perhaps, of having been almost twins once upon a time?”
I did not say anything for I was thinking hard. Now I was Gerald’s friend. This lady of the green hat was Gerald’s sister, nay, his twin sister. Fancy, I thought. Where, I asked myself, did one stand? It was a matter for thought, for deep thought, and so I treated it, as she did not appear to be in any great hurry.
Now while these things were passing, the lady and I were standing
