Six HAT PAINT

Luke had been just in the act of applying a match to a cigarette. The unex-pectedness of her remark momentarily paralysed his hand. He remainedquite motionless for a second or two, the match burned down andscorched his fingers.
“Damn,” said Luke as he dropped the match and shook his hand vigor-ously. “I beg your pardon. You gave me rather a nasty jolt¹.” He smiled rue-fully.
“Did I?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “Oh, well, I suppose anyone of real intelligence wasbound to see through me! That story of my writing a book on folkloredidn’t take you in for a moment, I suppose?”
“Not after I’d once seen you.”
“You believed it up to then?”
“Yes.”
“All the same it wasn’t really a good story,” said Luke critically. “I mean,any man might want to write a book, but the bit about coming down hereand passing myself off as a cousin—I suppose that made you smell a rat?”
Bridget shook her head.
“No. I had an explanation for that—I thought I had, I mean. I presumedyou were pretty hard up—a lot of my and Jimmy’s friends are that—and Ithought he suggested the cousin stunt² so that—well, so that it would saveyour pride.”
“But when I arrived,” said Luke, “my appearance immediately suggestedsuch opulence³ that that explanation was out of the question?”
Her mouth curved in its slow smile.
“Oh, no,” she said. “It wasn’t that. It was simply that you were the wrongkind of person.”
“Not sufficient brains to write a book? Don’t spare my feelings. I’drather know.”
“You might write a book—but not that kind of book—old superstitions—delving into the past—not that sort of thing! You’re not the kind of man towhom the past means much—perhaps not even the future—only just thepresent.”
“H’m — I see.” He made a wry⁴ face. “Damn it all, you’ve made menervous ever since I got here! You look so confoundedly intelligent.”
“I’m sorry,” said Bridget drily. “What did you expect?”
“Well, I really hadn’t thought about it.”

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