The house was very still, and the refulgence of the afternoon light streaming into the small room fused the raw colors to a fiery concordancy. Upon the silence sounded presently a birdlike fidgeting, and Michael going out onto the landing to discover what it was, caught to his surprise the upward glance of a thin little woman in untidy pink.
“Hulloa!” she cried. “I never knew there was anybody in—you did give me a turn. I’ve only just woke up.”
Michael explained the situation, and she seemed relieved.
“I’ve been asleep all the afternoon,” she went on. “But it’s only natural in this hot weather to go to sleep in the afternoon if you don’t go out for a walk. Why don’t you come down and talk to me while I have some tea?”
Michael accepted the invitation with a courtesy which he half suspected this peaked pink little creature considered diverting.
“You’ll excuse the general untidiness,” she said. “But really in this weather anyone can’t bother to put their things away properly.”
Michael assented, and looked round at the room. It certainly was untidy. The large bed was ruffled where she had been lying down, and the soiled copy of a novelette gave it a sort of stale slovenry. Over the foot hung an accumulation of pink clothes. On the chairs, too, there were clothes pink and white, and the door bulged with numberless skirts. Miss Carlyle herself wore a pink blouse whose front had escaped the constriction of a belt. Even her face was a flat unshaded pink, and her thin lips would scarcely have showed save that the powder round the edges was slightly caked. Yet there was nothing of pink’s freshness and pleasant crudity in the general effect. It was a tired, a frowsy pink like a fondant that has lain a long while in a confectioner’s window.
“Take a chair and make yourself at home,” she invited him. “What’s your name?”
He told her “Fane.”
“You silly thing, you don’t suppose I’m going to call you Mr. Fane, do you? What’s your other name? Michael? That’s Irish, isn’t it? I used to know a fellow once called Micky Sullivan. I suppose they call you Micky at home.”