“Go on, you silly thing,” she said, pushing the money away. “As if I meant it.”
“If you didn’t, I did,” said Michael.
“Oh, all right,” she replied, with a wink, putting the money in her purse. “Well, chin-chin, Clive, don’t be so long coming down here next time.”
“Michael is my name,” he said, for he was rather distressed to think that she would pass forever from his life supposing him to be called Clive.
“As if I didn’t know that,” she said. “I remember, because it’s a Jew name.”
“But it isn’t,” Michael contradicted.
“Jews are called that.”
“Very likely,” he admitted.
“Oh, well, it’ll be all the same in a hundred years.”
She picked up her white gloves, and swaggered across the crowded beerhall. At the foot of the stairs she turned and waved them to him. Then she disappeared.