“But do you think you should come here like this?” he expostulated.
“I was in here the other time,” she said, with a defiant little perk of her chin. She sat down primly, carefully tucking her skirt about her and removing one of his discarded news-sheets from behind her back. “Now do you remember?”
She drew a long pin out of her hat, took that off. “Try me now, this way.” She touched at the puff of hair that was worn over each ear, covering the entire ear.
She waited a moment. The effects must have been visible all over his face. “I see you do now,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought surely you’d... Don’t you remember Leona Harris? I even gave you my name.”
That came back too now, at the sound of it.
“I didn’t really—” he said lamely.
“But it is my right name. Look, I’ll show you.” She opened a patent-leather pouch she had carried tucked under one arm.
He made a dissuading motion of his hand toward her. “It’s all right, I believe you.”
“And after all, I did come back here with you.” It was said inattentively. She was looking into her bag for something, and not at him, as she spoke.
He could feel a slight pull at the lining of both his cheeks, as though they had grown taut for a moment. “Oh, no,” he said quietly, “aren’t you mistaken about that?”
“But I did,” she said with innocent trustfulness, her eyes on him now almost reproachfully. “You know I did. Didn’t you find my hairpins on the dresser the next day? Didn’t you find my little stick of lip rouge lying around somewhere the next day? I know I must have left it here.”
“How did you know I’d find those things?” he asked her.
“Because I left them here. You’d have to find them; who else would if you didn’t?”
“Did you leave them purposely for me to...?” He checked himself. He rubbed the back of one hand against the hollow of the other, as though it troubled him a little, itched perhaps. Then belatedly he felt for the evaporating stickiness on his face. “Will you excuse me a second?”
He went into the bathroom and hurriedly wiped his face off on a towel. Then he put on his shirt and buttoned it and thrust it under his belt.
When he came out she was still sitting there, in a sort of amiable quiescence. Not looking toward the doorway through which he had gone. She was holding a cigarette in her hand now. A skein of silky smoke threaded its way upward, bisecting her face.
She saw the startled look he gave. “I have to steal the chance whenever I can get it,” she said apologetically. “We women haven’t as much freedom as you men.”
He went over and selected a tie and began to do it up before the glass. His hand wasn’t quite steady at it; he had to begin the knot over. “Well, it was nice of you to drop by,” he said.
“I don’t hold anything against anyone,” she said.
He picked up his watch and glanced at it as he did so. “It’s after six already,” he said.
She took a puff of her cigarette.
He ran a brush sketchily over his hair. He took his jacket out, and shook it a couple of times, and put it on. She took another puff of her cigarette. He turned toward her, prodding a fresh handkerchief down into his breast pocket. “Will you excuse me now? I’ve got to go out.”
“No.”
The flatness of it startled him, threw him off balance, out of key, for a moment.
She must have wanted that, that was why she’d toned it that way. A man off balance is a man easier to overthrow.
He stood there looking at her for a minute before he was able to bring out anything. Then finally, “What is it you want?” he blurted out.
She smiled again, in that demure, abashed way. “I’m glad you asked. I was hoping you’d ask me that. I’ve been waiting for it.”
“Well, now I have.”
There was something a little frightening about her protracted smile, Marshall thought, and he wondered what it was. But he couldn’t tell.
“And now I’m going to answer you,” she replied.
But she didn’t.
There was a silence, a lapse, while he stood looking at her expectantly. Nothing more came, only the smile was there. He found himself becoming uneasy, at a loss. The smile did something to his poise. She seemed to want it to, the way she prolonged it.
“You really can’t guess?” she asked.
“No, I can’t,” he said shortly.
“I want some money, for the other night.”
The smile hadn’t left her face, as she said it. It was only the text of the remark itself that was completely at variance with her attitude of friendly, quiescent ease; nothing else; neither the inflection of her voice, nor the expression of her eyes and face, nor the posture of her body. There was neither tautness nor hardness nor anything else; it was almost a wistful drawl.
“I don’t get you.”
She chose to take it literally; that he hadn’t heard her clearly, rather than that he didn’t understand. “I said I want some money, for the other night.”
“And I said I don’t get you.”
She was still smiling that way. That slow, sticky, glutinous way.
The smile was working at last, simply by dint of being worn so long. She wanted him to understand it.
“The other night, in the café?”
“The part after the café part.” She waited a moment, then she added: “The café part is paid up.”
The shock was cataclysmic. It was like having a basinful of filthy water flung unexpectedly into his face. It was like suddenly seeing worms crawl out of the eyes of a beautiful porcelain doll.
His mouth opened and he jarred a step back.
For a moment rage and disgust gave him back his self-possession, his command of the situation. Even if fleetingly.
“Why, you brazen little...! With an innocent face like yours, and to come out with such a thing!”
“I’m glad you used that word, innocent,” she mused.
“You little liar! Get out of here! Go on, get out of here before I...!”
She didn’t move. The smile had left her face, that was all. She looked up at him with the grave mien of a child, weathering an adult storm of temper without even knowing what it was about, content to sit it out.
“You know what that is, don’t you? Blackmail. Do you know that I could have you arrested for that?”
To his surprise, she nodded acquiescently. “Yes, I thought of that before I came up here. You could.” It threw him a little; he’d expected counterrecrimination, not assent.
“I told you to get out of here. Go on now, get out.”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t. You’ll have to pick me up and carry me out, if you want me to go.”
“Well, I can do that too!” He made a sudden lunge toward her with both arms extended, then stopped short.
“Don’t you think it’s better to keep the conversation in here, in your room, than to carry it outside, to the hall? Don’t you think it’s better to keep it just between ourselves?” She shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s up to you.”
“Well, I know the quickest way to settle this!” he said wrathfully. “I’m going to call the police.”
She nodded. “Go ahead. There’s the phone.”
He wrenched it up, then took the receiver off the hook. “Central, give me the Police Department, please.”
She crossed her legs. Then didn’t forget to modestly lower her skirt. She even let her torso sink down somewhat into a slumped position, as a person does who expects to have to wait for some time. She opened her purse and peered into it, presumably into a mirror berthed in it, for he saw her touch at her hair once or twice, in fastidious adjustment.