knew that when you were there you seemed to warm and lighten the atmosphere.”
“You owe me nothing,” Isobel broke in. “All the other way. You gave me another interest in life. Now do stop bouncing on that poor bed. I can see that the hotel management will have to supply a new mattress for the next occupant of this room! The rain is gone, and your penny whistle man has gone too, to get a drink, probably with your money. The sun’s coming out. What about going now to an agent and getting a list of houses? There’s nothing like taking time by the fetlock, as Aunt Constance always put it. And if you would be so kind as to come and see me fitted for my new coat and skirt I’d be grateful. It’s such a help to have a friend to back one if any alteration is needed. I’m so easily spoken down.”
Isobel, as she spoke, brought out from Kitty’s wardrobe a coat, a fox fur, a hat, and gloves.
“Thank you, kind Nannie,” responded Kitty. “How do you suppose I’m going to stand on my own feet in a cold and draughty world after being made a pet of by you for months?”
“Oh, that’s going to cease,” Isobel told her. “You don’t need me any longer, I know, but I haven’t yet got out of the habit of looking after you. I shan’t be a minute getting ready.”
CHAPTER II
Merely to be alive is adventure enough in a world like
this, so erratic and disjointed, so lovely and so odd,
and mysterious and profound. It is, at any rate, a
pity to remain in it half-dead.
Walter de la Mare
A week later the two friends sat together in Isobel’s room. Spring had made appreciable progress in the week; the crocuses were all aglow in the gardens opposite, the buds on the lilac bushes were swelling, the birds busy with their nests.
Kitty’s plans had also made some progress.
“It’s been a most agitating week,” she was saying. “If I look as battered as I feel I must be rather a sight. Who’d have thought it was such a difficult business to find a house to let.”
“It’s the ‘to let’ that’s the difficulty,” said Isobel, who was sitting with her work-basket beside her, placidly mending. “Everything is for sale, and you don’t want to buy.”
“I don’t indeed. Even if I could afford to, what’d be the use of buying? It’s different for people with children—and even they wouldn’t buy a flat. What places we’ve seen! Are there really people who would live in a basement, always in artificial light, and be willing to pay £150 a year for the privilege? And these terrible new blocks like penitentiaries, with every new gadget, I grant you, but mere boxes! Personally I don’t know any cat-slingers, but if any exist they couldn’t indulge their hobby in these mansions. There’s no room for a pet; even a canary would feel itself de trop.”
“What about the one in Westminster?” Isobel asked. “It had quite good rooms.”
“But only two of them—one good living-room, one bed-room, an excellent bathroom, and a cupboard of a kitchen. It would mean never having a friend to stay, and, worse than that, no resident maid. Besides, I don’t like to eat in the room I sit in. What I’d like in Westminster would be one of those little old houses, but they again have basement kitchens, and, anyway, are seldom to be let. No, the only thing I can see myself in is that flat in Sloane Street, and it’s too expensive.”
“Have you thought it over carefully, and calculated what it would cost to run?” Isobel asked, looking with satisfaction at the eager face opposite to her, and thinking how beneficial a week of house-hunting had proved.
Kitty rescued a reel of silk and returned it to the work-basket.
“Yes,” she said, “I have, and I’m afraid I daren’t attempt it. My old nurse used to say of people who had too large and expensive a house, ‘I doubt it’ll burn them, not warm them,’ and there’s a lot of truth in the saying. Of course, in a flat you know more or less where you are. The rent covers everything in the way of taxes and, generally, central heating and constant hot water.”
Isobel nodded. “Compared with other flats we saw, I thought the Sloane Street one very reasonable. I liked the whole look of it. There was something so old-fashioned and settled-looking about everything, the entrance, the staircase, the lift. I am sure the people in the other flats are everything that is quiet and respectable. You wouldn’t like neighbours who entertained till all hours. And the rooms are large and airy—I expect your furniture would look just right in them—and the neighbourhood is so pleasant.”
“Temptress!” said Kitty. “You know quite well I’m simply longing to get that flat.”
“Well, go to your lawyer and lay it before him. He should know just what you can afford. Go this very morning. The flat may be snapped up any minute. If you like I’ll meet you somewhere for lunch, and we might look at some other places, supposing Mr. Johnson turns down your flat. But I don’t believe he will. I’ve a feeling in my bones that you were meant to live there.”
“Bless you for that,” said Kitty, rising with alacrity. “I’ll go now, this very minute. Where shall we meet?”
“Would Marshall’s be all right for you? And when we are out, what about getting some clothes? You said yourself you needed them, and to my mind there’s no tonic like a new hat.”
“If I get my flat,” said Kitty, “I shan’t ever again be able to afford any personal adornment. It’ll be old clothes indefinitely for me.”
Isobel folded up the garments she had mended, and said, “Shall we say one o’clock at Marshall’s luncheon-room? I’ll try to get a table at a window. Come right up, will you?”
It was nearly half-past one when Isobel, at her table in the window saw a small figure come in, glance round, and, on catching sight of her, come quickly forward.
“She’s got it,” said Isobel to herself.
“So sorry to have kept you,” Kitty began breathlessly, “but I couldn’t help it. Isobel, it’s all right. Mr. Johnson thinks I can just manage it, and he’s sending to see about it this afternoon. I’m not pretending that he was very keen about it, and he says they must find out exactly what state it’s in before anything’s settled, but . . . yes, anything you like. I’m too excited to eat. You know, although Mr. Johnson’s rather like a tortoise to look at, he’s really quite decent. I was surprised that a dry-as-dust old lawyer could be so human. He actually seemed to understand how much it meant to me, and I’m pretty sure he’ll manage to arrange it. It’s a blessing I spent almost nothing all winter, for I’ve a good deal lying. Perhaps I’d better get some clothes as long as I have any money. How good these sweetbreads are! I didn’t know I was so hungry.”
While they ate, the conversation circled constantly round the flat.
“I thought,” said Kitty, “that I’d examined every bit of it, but when Mr. Johnson asked me questions I found I knew practically nothing. I could tell him about the size and shape of the rooms, and their outlook, but I’d entirely neglected to notice
