The Belfry. Sinclair May

to slouch forward from the hips in those days), a squareness that agreed somehow with the character of her small face. I didn't know then whether it was a pretty face or not. I daresay it was a bit too odd and square for prettiness, and, as for beauty, that had all gone into the lines of her body (which was beautiful, if you like). When you looked carefully, you got a little square, white forehead, and straight eyebrows of the same darkness as her hair, and very distinct on the white, and eyes also very dark and distinct, and fairly crystalline with youth; and a little white and very young nose that started straight and ended absurdly in a little soft knob that had a sort of kink in it; and a mouth which would have been too large for her face if it hadn't made room for itself by tilting up at the corners; and then a little square white chin and jaw; they were thrust forward, but so lightly and slenderly that it didn't matter. It doesn't sound—does it?—as if she could have been pretty, let alone beautiful; and yet—and yet she managed that little head of hers and that little odd face so as to give an impression of beauty or of prettiness. It was partly the oddness of the face and head, coming on the top of all that symmetry, that perfection, that made the total effect of her so bewildering. I can't find words for the total effect (I don't know that you ever got it all at once, and I certainly didn't get it then), and if I were to tell you that what struck me first about her was something perverse and wilful and defiant, this would be misleading.

      She smiled in her mature, perfunctory manner as she took the chair I gave her. She cast out her muff over my writing-table, and flung back the furs that covered her breast and shoulders, as if she had come to stay, as if it were four o'clock in the afternoon and I had asked her to tea for the first time.

      I remember saying, "That's right. I'm afraid this room is a bit warm, isn't it?"—as if she had done something uninvited and a little unexpected, and I wished to reassure her. As if, too, I desired to assert my position as the giver of assurances.

      (And it was I who needed them, not she.)

      She hadn't been in that room five minutes before she had created a situation; a situation that bristled with difficulty and danger.

      To begin with, she was so young. She couldn't have been, then, a day older than one-and-twenty. My first instinct (at least, I suppose it was my first) was to send her away; to tell her that I was afraid she wouldn't do, that she was too unpunctual, and that I had found, between nine-thirty and ten o'clock, somebody who would suit me rather better. Any lie I could think of, so long as I got out of it. So long as I got her out of it.

      I don't know how it was she so contrived to impress me as being in for something, some impetuous adventure, some enterprise of enormous uncertainty. It may have been because she looked so well-cared-for and expensive. I do not understand these matters, but her furs, and her tailor-made suit of dark cloth, and the little black velvet hat with the fur tail in it were not the sort of clothes I had hitherto seen worn by typists seeking for employment. So that I doubted whether financial necessity could have driven her to my door. Or else I had a premonition. She herself had none. She was guileless and unaware of taking any risks. And that, I think, was what disturbed me. The situation bristled because she so ignored all difficulty or danger.

      Please don't imagine that I regarded myself as dangerous or even difficult, or her as being, in any vulgar sense, out for adventure, or as balancing herself even for amusement on any perilous edge. It was not what she was out for, it was, as I say, what she might possibly be in for; and what she would, in consequence, let me in for too. She made me feel responsible.

      "Let me see," I said; "it's typing, isn't it?"

      I began raking through drawers and pigeon-holes, pretending to find her letter and the sample of her work that she had sent me, though I knew all the time that they lay under my hand hidden by the blotter. I wanted to give myself time; I wanted to create the impression that I was old at this game; that I had to do with scores and scores of young women seeking employment; to make her realize the grim fact of competition; to saturate her with the idea that she was only one of scores and scores, all docketed and pigeon-holed, any one of whom might have superior qualities; when it would be easy enough to say, "I'm sorry, but the fact is, I rather think I've engaged somebody already."

      "Yes," she said, "it's typing. I can't do anything else. But if you want shorthand, I could learn it."

      This gave me an opening. "Well—I'm sorry—but the fact is—"

      "Did you like what I sent you?"

      That staggered me. I hadn't allowed for her voice. For a moment I wondered wildly what had she sent me?

      "Oh, yes. I liked it. But—" I began it again.

      She leaned forward this time, peering under my elbow (the minx! I'm convinced she knew the infernal thing was there).

      "I see," she said. "You've lost it. Don't bother. I can do another. As long as you liked it, that's all right."

      I remember thinking violently: "It isn't all right. It's all wrong. And the more I like it (if I do like it) the worse it's going to be." But all I said was, "You wrote from Canterbury, didn't you?"

      "Yes."

      It was as if she challenged me with: "Why not? Why shouldn't one write from Canterbury?" And she stuck out her little chin as her eyes opened fire on me at close range.

      "Do you live there?" I said.

      "Yes." She corrected herself. "My people live there."

      "Oh! Because—in that case—I'm sorry—but—the fact is, I'm afraid—" I floundered, and she watched me floundering. Then I plunged. "I must have a typist who lives in London." (And I might have added "a typist who won't open fire on me at close range.")

      "But," she said, "I do—at least, I'm going to to-morrow evening."

      I must have sat staring then quite a long time, not at her, but at one of

       Roland Simpson's sketches on the wall in front of me.

      She followed, but not quite accurately, the direction of my thoughts.

      "If you want references, I can give you heaps. General Thesiger's my uncle. Why? Do you know him?"

      I had ceased staring. He was not the General I knew, but she had spoken a sufficiently distinguished name. I said as much.

      "Of course lots of people know him," she went on with a sort of radiant rapidity. "And he knows lots of people. But I wouldn't write to him if I were you. He'll only be rude, and ask you who the devil you are. There's my father, Canon Thesiger. It's no good writing to him, either. It'll worry him. And there's—no, you mustn't bother the Archbishop. But there's the Dean. You might write to him! And there's Colonel Braithwaite and Mrs. Braithwaite. They're all dears. You might write to any of them. Only I'd much rather you didn't."

      "Why?" I said. I thought I was entitled to ask why.

      "Because," she said, "it'll only mean a lot more bother for me."

      I believe I meditated on this before I asked her, "Why should it?"

      "Because it isn't easy to get away and earn your own living in this country. And they'll try, poor dears, to stop me. And they can't."

      "If they don't," I said, "are you sure it won't mean a lot of bother for them?"

      "Not," she said gravely, "if they're left alone and not worried. It will, of course, if you go and write and stir them all up again."

      "I see. For the moment, then, they are placated?"

      "Rather." (I wondered on what grounds.) "We settled that last night."

      "Then—" I said, "forgive my asking so many questions—your people know you had this appointment with me?"

      Her eyebrows took a little tortured twist in her pity for my stupidity.

      "Oh no. That would have upset them all for nothing. It doesn't do to worry them with silly details. You see, they don't know anything about you."

      It was