Mr Hire's Engagement Read Online Free PDF Page B

exactly looking in, but for all that he noticed there was a man in there, perhaps two, sitting astride a chair near the stove. He knew it was the man who had torn off the sticking-plaster and who had followed him that morning.
    He went heavily upstairs, and the light went out, leaving him with one flight still to climb. But he was used to that. He found the lock, slipped his key into it, and the cold breath of his room blew into his face. When, after shutting the door, he switched on the light, he was frowning, with an air of anxiety. His eyes wandered round the room, searching for something.
    Mr. Hire did not smoke, and yet the room was smelling vaguely of stale tobacco.
    He went straight to a drawer containing dirty linen, and wearily closed it, flung his leather briefcase onto the bed and hung his hat on the coatstand.
    The bloodstained dishcloth had disappeared.
     
     
    He had put the light out and was standing at the window, in his overcoat, with his hands in his pockets. The girl from the dairy had gone to bed before he got home, but she was not asleep, She was reading another novel, her bare arms lying outside the sheets, a cigarette between her lips.
    There was not a sound in the house now, except that of a coffee-mill grinding, just above Mr. Hire's head. Probably somebody ill, for coffee to be prepared at such an hour.
    The girl had not let her hair down before getting into bed. It even looked as though she had powdered her face and put on a touch of rouge. Sometimes she raised her head. Her eyes left the printed page glanced across the bed, and looked at the window, with its transparent muslin curtains.
    What was she looking at? The dark wall on the far side of the courtyard? She moved her head slightly, as though discreetly beckoning to someone. But wasn't it only because her neck was stiff?
    Mr. Hire stood motionless. He could clearly see the girl's full lips parting in a smile. But for whom? Why? She pushed back the sheets a little and stretched herself, so that her white nightdress drew tighter across the curve of her breasts. And she went on smiling, with an air of utter sensual bliss.
    Perhaps it was because she was warm in bed? Perhaps her smile was meant for the hero of her book.
    She pulled her knees up under the blankets, and Mr. Hire pressed his forehead harder against the cold window-pane. She was summoning him! There could be no doubt about it! She was moving her head again, as before! She was smiling straight at his window! He did not move, and she got out of bed, uncovered her pink thighs for a moment. When she stood up, with the lamp behind her, he could see the outline of her body through the transparent nightdress.
    She was making signs to him to come! She was pointing to her door! She drew back the bolt and got back into bed with a voluptuous, enticing movement, stretched out again, this time holding her breasts with both hands.
    Mr. Hire drew back. He could still see her, but from further away. He knocked into the table, fumbled in a drawer, without switching the light on, to find something white, no matter what, and came upon a handkerchief.
    The girl was no longer watching the window. She doubtless supposed he was on his way down, and she was tidying her hair with the help of a pocket mirror, rubbing lipstick over her mouth.
    Mr. Hire made no noise. Above his head a wire mattress creaked and a voice murmured plaintively. He propped the handkerchief against the window with a broomstick, at the spot where his face had been before, and he went to open the door, listened.
    In spite of his felt slippers, some of the stairs creaked. A voice from inside one door called out:
    'Is that you?'
    He went by without answering. That flat belonged to a couple with three children. The concierge's lodge was in darkness, and Mr. Hire went past the door, nearly sent the dustbins clattering, and reached the courtyard.
    It was nine feet long, six feet wide, and from top to bottom there were windows, only three of