I prefer the ‘dignified disapproval’ stunt. I made a little bow.īut this most unaccountable of damsels frowned and shook her head.Ĭut it out. I was going to add that, although I am desolated, I can manage to put up with her absence very well. There! Now we’re friends! declared the minx. The girl was certainly all that I most disliked, but that was no reason why I should make myself ridiculous by my attitude. Her laughter was so infectious that I could not help joining in, though I hardly cared for the word mutt. I knew you weren’t such a mutt as you looked, she cried. In spite of myself I could not help smiling, and in a minute she had tossed the paper aside, and had burst into a merry peal of laughter. In a minute or two I saw her eyes stealthily peeping at me over the top. She buried herself behind a large comic French paper. Say no more! Nobody loves me! I shall go into the garden and eat worms! Boohoo! I am crushed! I opened my mouth, but she forestalled me. He disapproves utterly-of me, and my sister-which last is unfair, because he hasn’t seen her! I apologize for my language! Most unladylike, and all that, but Oh, Lord, there’s reason enough for it! Do you know I’ve lost my only sister? Nothing abashed, she returned my glance, and executed an expressive grimace.ĭear me, we’ve shocked the kind gentleman! she observed to an imaginary audience.
I judged that she was little more than seventeen, but her face was covered with powder, and her lips were quite impossibly scarlet. A thick cluster of black curls hid each ear. I looked up now, frowning slightly, into a pretty, impudent face, surmounted by a rakish little red hat. I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning to night, smokes like a chimney, and uses language which would make a Billingsgate fishwoman blush!
Jumping up from her seat, she let down the window and stuck her head out, withdrawing it a moment later with the brief and forcible ejaculation Hell! Up till then I had hardly noticed my companion, but I was now violently recalled to the fact of her existence.
I had made a somewhat hurried departure from the hotel and was busy assuring myself that I had duly collected all my traps when the train started. The Calais express was singularly empty-in fact, my own compartment held only one other traveller. I had been transacting some business in Paris and was returning by the morning service to London where I was still sharing rooms with my old friend, the Belgian ex-detective, Hercule Poirot. Only the lady who gave utterance to the exclamation was not a Duchess!
Strangely enough, this tale of mine opens in much the same fashion. I believe that a well-known anecdote exists to the effect that a young writer, determined to make the commencement of his story forcible and original enough to catch and rivet the attention of the most blasé of editors, penned the following sentence:
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