The Green Hat · I · Chapter 1 2 (2/2)

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. “Goodbye 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.⁠ ⁠…”