“What is it you require?”
She gave a little deprecating laugh, with a tiny protest of the shoulders.
“Not, at least, what I found on my pillow last night.”
“What—Ah, very true! I was afraid they were too large.”
“They smelt of tobacco—pouf!”—she made a wry face.
“I swear they were clean from the wash.”
“I daresay. But there was a coat where they had lain—an old coat—for I looked.”
“Well, you had carte-blanche. And—now I remember: I had lost that coat, an old, old friend that I valued.”
“He must have died, I think, of senile decay. I would let his memory rest.”
“That is not my way of honouring old friends.”