Blindfold Read Online Free PDF Page A

brows. The boy was gone then, and his twenty-eight years could be believed. Just now he laughed.
    â€œOptimism? Well, you’d say so if you knew when those letters were written.”
    Gilmore’s eyebrows went up.
    â€œJuly 1914,” said Miles. “There was just going to be a tidy-sized war, Gil, in case you’ve forgotten. That mixes it a bit—doesn’t it?”
    They had arrived at the sweet.
    As Miles helped himself, Flossie Palmer was looking into the cracked mirror on her chest of drawers. The crack was high up in one corner, so it didn’t really matter. She had on a very bright pink dress which killed her delicate porcelain tints, but she considered it a complete success. She had painted her lips a brilliant cerise and darkened her eyebrows with a burnt match. She and Ernie were going to the palais de danse , and the immediate problem was to get out of the house without being seen by Aunt. Aunt would make her wash her face, to a cert she would. She already thought the dress too bright to be quite respectable. Aunt was so pertickler.
    Flossie tilted the glass for a last good look. She wanted something round her neck, and she’d got nothing but her old beads. She took them out of the drawer and hung them round her neck—three times round and something to spare. A bit dull in colour. Old-fashioned too, going three times round like that. The grey looked rather nice hanging down over the bright pink of the dress. She put on her coat, listened at the top of the stairs, and ran down them quick and light to join Ernie in the street.
    And at the same moment in the kitchen at 16 Varley Street Mrs Green looked up at the kitchen clock.
    â€œGetting on for nine o’clock. I thought it’d ha’ been later.”
    She was addressing the new house-parlour-maid, who was still in her out-door clothes. They were very neat out-door clothes, but not very warm for the time of year—a dark blue coat and skirt, a grey scarf, and a little round grey cap. The hair under the cap was dark, very dark indeed. It waved away from an extremely pretty forehead. Mrs Green, looking at her, thought the girl a deal too pretty for service—“Why, with her hair as black as that, her skin did ought to be dark. And look at it—white as privet! Show me a girl as pretty as that, and I’ll show you one that’ll get her head turned before you can say Jack Robinson.”
    At the moment there did not seem to be any sign of head-turning or of what Mrs Green called “ideas.” The dark blue eyes looked at her in an anxious, friendly manner.
    â€œDo I have to do anything to-night?”
    The girl’s voice increased Mrs Green’s apprehension. Niminy-piminy she called it—for all the world like the young ladies in her last place, and all very well for young ladies. Actually, the voice was a pretty one.
    â€œWhat did you say?” said Mrs Green. “And I’ve forgot your name, what with that girl running out of the house like a mad thing last night, and only come in a matter of two hours before. And two others this month, and I don’t know what girls are coming to, I’m sure. And what did you say your name was?”
    â€œKay,” said the girl.
    â€œRubbidge!” said Mrs Green. “There’s no such name!”
    The very little beginning of a laugh changed the charming line of the lips into something more charming still. A dimple showed and was gone. She said sedately,
    â€œIt’s all I’ve got. Please, do I have to do anything tonight?”
    â€œHalf past ten,” said Mrs Green, “you takes ’er Benger’s up. Half past ten to a tick, she ’as it. And you don’t go in, not for nothing. You waits on the mat till Nurse opens the door and takes the tray.”
    â€œI’ll just go and take off my things,” said Kay.

CHAPTER V
    The next day being Saturday, Miles Clayton went to Hampstead and walked up