Beggar’s Choice

After a moment’s hesitation I went back to the hut. I was very curious to see the other person-the some one else who had sighed in the darkness, and who wanted to speak to me. I went up to the door and looked in. Half the room was light, and half was dark. In the dark half some one was standing -a woman, in what looked like a black cloak and veil. The minute I moved she snatched up the lantern and turned the light on to my face. I don’t know anything that makes you feel such a perfect fool as being stared at like that by some one you can’t see. She took her time over it too, and just as I was begi

“How do you do, Car?” she said.

I just stood there like a stock, for I was clean knocked out of time. She had on some sort of close cap with a black veil that covered her face and went round her neck like a scarf, but the minute she opened her mouth I knew her. It was A

Well, I never liked A

I stood there, and A

“Don’t you know me, Car?”

Her voice is one of the things that a

I said, “Of course I know you. How do you do?” And I’m afraid I didn’t say it very nicely. I don’t know why some people always rub you up, but there it is.

When I said that, she laughed. She has the sort of laugh that is called “mellow” and “liquid” in novels. Personally I hate it. When she had laughed, she said,

“I don’t do very well, and I’m afraid you don’t either. Don’t you think we might have something to say to each other?”

I didn’t honestly feel that I had anything to say to her. I said so-politely of course. I put it that I hadn’t exactly been making history, and that I wasn’t going to bore any one with my horribly dull career.

She laughed again.

“You needn’t be polite. It doesn’t really suit you. I’ve come here because I want to talk to you. Will you give me ten minutes of your time?”

I couldn’t say no to that.

“Well, let’s sit down,” she said. “One can conduct an interview standing, but one can’t talk. I want to talk.”

She stepped over the threshold and sat down on the step that ran the width of the door. I sat down too, in the opposite corner. I watched her unwind the black veil and throw it back. She did this very deliberately. Then she reached up behind her and turned the lantern so that the light shone straight between us and I could see her face and she could see mine. That’s the sort of thing that riles me in A

She threw back the veil, and turned the light and looked at me, tilting her chin up a little and half closing her eyes. An artist once told her that she looked like the Blessed Damozel when she did that, and it’s been her stock pose ever since. If you saw her painted like that, you’d say “How beautiful!” -and it would be quite true. But it’s a trick all the same, and a trick ends in putting your back up.

I said, “You’re looking very well, A

“Do I?” she said. “You don’t-poor Car!”

I would have liked to say straight out, “For the Lord’s sake, don’t ‘poor Car’ me!” But I expect I looked it, for she said,

“Don’t be angry. Can’t you be friends and talk to me for ten minutes? Ten minutes isn’t much out of three years. It’s three years since we talked, isn’t it?”

“Getting on.”

“What sort of years have they been?”

“Oh, so so.”

She put out her hand as if she were going to touch me.

“Perhaps I know more about them than you think.”

“There’s nothing much to know.”

“Shall I tell you what I know? It’s not very pleasant telling-is it? So I think I’ll leave it alone. It’s been downhill all the way, and now you’ve got to the place where there isn’t another step at all.”

It sounds bald and brutal written down, but she said it in a sweet sad way, and at the end her voice broke into the sort of sigh which had come from the dark corner of the car.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” I said.

“You and me. Do you hate me, Car?”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense!”

She laughed again, sadly. An ass who wrote poetry told her that her laugh had all the tears and all the music of the world in it. Of course, after that, she made a point of laughing sadly. She’s had a lot of practice, and she does it awfully well.

“Look here, A

“Perhaps I did.”

What can you do with a woman like that? I moved as if I was going to get up.

“Car-don’t! I-I do want to talk to you. I-I’ve risked a lot to come and talk to you like this.”

I never heard such rubbish in my life. You’d think she might know it wasn’t any good talking like that to me. A

“What’s the good of talking like that? What have you brought me down here for?”

“Bobby’s been telling you.”

Bobby… When she said that, I knew where I’d seen the fat man before. Markham -that was his name-Bobby Markham. The Bobby did it, and his bulk. About a fortnight ago I tried for the job of secretary to a man called Arbuthnot Markham who is a partner in a big firm of timber importers. As they do most of their business with South America, and as I happen to have a smattering of Spanish, I thought I might have a chance. I hadn’t. And after I’d seen Arbuthnot Markham I wasn’t so sorry-I didn’t like him. But beggars can’t be choosers.

The fat man was in the outer office when I came through.

He didn’t speak to me, though we’d had a nodding acquaintance some years before. He recognized me all right though-I could see that. It rather rubs it in when the people you didn’t think good enough for you, start thinking you’re not good enough for them. Not that I cared what Bobby Markham did. I didn’t like him any better than I liked his brother. I suppose they were brothers; there was a good deal of likeness, only Arbuthnot was hard where Bobby was soft, and thick-set where Bobby was just fat. I put down Arbuthnot as a bully, and Bobby as a silly ass. Their voices were alike though.

“Oh,” I said, “Bobby’s been telling me?” That was A