The Debit Account

by Oliver Onions

And I cannot better tell you how curiously stunned even my sense of hearing seemed to be than by saying that I heard not one note of "Ora pro Nobis," but only the soft hissing of the cistern overhead in the corner.

But, after I know not what space of time in which I had become half hypnotised by those two tiny refractions of coloured light, I suddenly put the glasses away from me. Also I heard the gramophone once more, and felt the returnings of methodical thought. There came to me, after all this time, the very ordinary reflection that Kitty must have recognised me—had probably known I was coming—and had not been able to endure my presence in the room.... I remembered Evie's words: "I think you are wrong if you think that things like that go on for years and years." Looking covertly up, I saw that Evie had moved, and was now on the other side of Kitty from that occupied by Miss Levey. As I watched, she picked up Kitty's handkerchief, and Kitty smiled. Kitty's eyes even met mine, but whether they saw me or were merely full of "Ora pro Nobis," which was being played for the second or third time, I could not tell. They moved away again without having given any sign of recognition.

Then the tune ended, and Miss Levey jumped up.

"Now, let's have something jolly!" she cried. "And Mr Jeffries has finished his supper—make room for him in the circle—move up, Aschael."

It came suddenly upon me that there was one place, and one place only in that room for me to take. I had risen. I strode over the box of records in which Mr Kato was rummaging, sat down next to Kitty Windus, and held out my hand.

"How do you do, Kitty?" I said.

So far was she from starting or trembling that she merely turned, blinked a little, and, taking my hand, said, in the thin little voice I used to know so well, "Ah! I thought you'd come and speak to me, by-and-by."

So if Miss Levey had deliberately planned this for my confusion, I triumphed over her.

For a quarter of an hour Evie and I sat one on either side of Kitty Windus. There was no difficulty whatever. Kitty, though she spoke little, showed no more restraint than it had been her wont to show, and there was nothing to bring up even the ghost of our past relation. And if I triumphed over Miriam Levey, so Evie triumphed over me in the private glances she gave me past the back of Kitty's head. She had been right, and I wrong. Those stories of how Kitty had been found walking round and round Lincoln's Inn Fields at night, unable, when confronted by a policeman, to remember her own name, or where she lived—I strongly doubted them. I even found Louie's account of her mental state difficult to believe.... She spoke of her neuralgias. She had been a martyr to them, she said, but they had been better lately. Somebody's Tic Mixture had done them more good than anything else. I ought to try it—she'd write the name of it down for me on a piece of paper in case I forgot—she hadn't been remembering things very well lately herself. Louie had advised her to try Somebody Else's Tincture, but she didn't believe in that at all; it was one of these imitations that the shopmen were always trying to palm off on people.... At this point, seeing she had mentioned Louie, I thought it safe to venture an offhand, "Oh, how's Louie, by the way?" But Kitty, apparently forgetting that she herself had introduced the name, pursed her lips. Louie, she mumbled, hadn't behaved very well. She didn't mean to herself; she wouldn't in the least have minded that; but one had friends, and liked to see them treated as friends, which some people—— She stopped as Billy Izzard came up, perhaps hearing Louie's name.