The Little Girls Read Online Free PDF Page B

tight black turban, and on the lapel of her dark suit a striking brooch, sat down, with all but no hesitation, opposite a woman already there at the table. The already seated woman seemed in two minds as to whether to rise or not. She advanced a hand uncertainly, took it back again, slightly opened her mouth but did not speak, Given her almost excessively mondaine air, her look of being slightly too smart for London, her inadequacy was in itself dramatic. Her hat was composed of pink roses.
    First, each drew a breath, summoning her forces. Then, as though at a signal, they looked straight across at each other, then away again. Having got that over, they simultaneously uttered a sort of titter. Black Turban, settling into her chair, bumped a leg of the table with her knee, whereat Pink Roses tittered: “There you ge, againl” She added: “Imagine seeing you again!”
    ‘I’d been going to say, imagine seeing youl”
    As airily as could be, Pink Roses hazarded: “You’d never have known me, I suppose?”
    The other grinned, but didn’t commit herself: “I don’t say it wasn’t a good idea to describe your hat.”
    “That was my husband’s idea,” said Pink Roses, in a tone which made plain that it was her rule to do that individual justice whenever possible. “He said that as this was bound to be embarrassing enough for both of us, you and me I mean, it would be a mistake to start by going around staring at the wrong women, inviting snubs. ‘So let her know what you’ll wear,’ he said, ‘and be sure you wear it.’ He also hoped neither of us would be surprised if we got a shock.—No, I don’t suppose I’d ever have spotted you if, in return, you hadn’t described your brooch.—I should like to ask you: is it Italian?”
    “Not my type, in a general way,” observed Black Turban, ducking a look at her lapel. “Too much of an eye-catcher. Still, it’s served its purpose.”
    Pink Roses narrowed her eyes, to continue to look at the brooch, gluttonously. “Directly after I wrote you,” she went on, “I thought, whatever made me say this hat? Suppose it had rained? Coming up for the day, you never know. And it’s rather a summery hat for this time of year.” … Suddenly conscious of being studied, in a leisurely, neutral manner, across the table, she flamed up into suspicion, became defiant. “Or perhaps you think—?”
    “No,” decided the other (still cocking an eye, though). “I don’t. No, you can still get away with it.”
    “Well, thanks.—China or Indian?” A waitress indeed was waiting. The order given, the waitress watched out of hearing, Pink Roses deliberately turned her head and said: “Well, Clare …”
    “Hello to you, Sheila.” -
    They both leaned back as far as their chairs would go.
    “You know, Clare, it’s a curious thing—as I said, as you now are I’d normally not have known you. That is, if not for the brooch, and me looking out. And yet now, this minute, with you sitting there opposite, I quite distinctly see you the way you were. You so bring yourself back that it’s like a conjuring trick. I had all but forgotten you.”
    “And why shouldn’t you?”
    “Yes, why not, after all? If we had even known each other as girls … But since we met’s been the greater part of a lifetime. We weren’t girls then, even. What were we both? Eleven. Little girls don’t make sense.”
    Clare launched her bulk forward. “You, on the contrary, do the vanishing trick! To me what you’ve done’s the opposite way round. You still are (in some way?) like enough what you were to make me actually ‘see’ you the way you were less clearly than I—for instance—did an hour ago, on the way here. Know what I mean?”
    “No,” said the other flatly, without regret.
    “Aha, though, I’d know that ‘no’ of yours anywhere! It was always ‘no’—when it wasn’t ‘oh.’ ”
    “You must still be clever,” said Shelia coolly. Not expecting an answer, she opened her