The bell rang.
I said, “Let it ring for a while. Try not answering it.”
Whoever was downstairs kept playing a persistent, steady tune on the door-bell.
After a while I said, “Okay, find out who it is. If it’s the police you’ll have to let them in. Can you lie about my being here?”
“Like a trooper,” she said, picking up the cigarette ends I had left in the ash-tray and with the tip of her finger putting little smears of lipstick on the ends.
I laughed, and said, “You must have been caught in that trap before.”
“What trap?”
“Having cigarette ends in an ash-tray that didn’t have lipstick on them.”
“Is that nice?” she asked, pouting.
“No,” I said.