Читать книгу A Town Like Alice онлайн

37 страница из 48

I showed her where she could go to wash and tidy up, and while she was doing that I ordered her a sherry. I got up from the table in the drawing-room when she came to me, and gave her a cigarette, and lit it for her. "What did you do over the week-end?" I asked as we sat down. "Did you go out and celebrate?"

She shook her head. "I didn't do anything very much. I'd arranged to meet one of the girls in the office for lunch on Saturday and to go and see the new Bette Davis film at the Curzon, so we did that."

"Did you tell her about your good fortune?"

She shook her head. "I haven't told anybody." She paused, and sipped her sherry; she was managing that and her cigarette quite nicely. "It seems such an improbable story," she said, laughing. "I don't know that I really believe in it myself."

I smiled with her. "Nothing is real till it happens," I observed. "You'll believe that this is true when we send you the first cheque. It would be a great mistake to believe in it too hard before that happens."