The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene

to let such qualities go to waste. She said passionately, ‘I don’t mind their killing me.’
    â€˜There’s no danger of that.’
    Her voice came shivering out from beside the aspidistra. ‘ She ’d do anything. She acts mad sometimes – if she’s crossed. I don’t mind. I won’t let you down. You’re a gentleman.’ It was a horribly inadequate reason. She went mournfully on, ‘I’d do anything that girl’ll do.’
    â€˜You are doing much more.’
    â€˜Is she going back with you – there?’
    â€˜No, no.’
    â€˜Can I?’
    â€˜My dear,’ he said, ‘you don’t know what it’s like there.’
    He could hear a long whistling sigh. ‘You don’t know what it’s like here.’
    â€˜Where are they now?’ he asked. ‘The manageress and her friend?’
    â€˜The first-floor front,’ she said. ‘Are they your – deadly foes?’ God knew out of what twopenny trash she drew her vocabulary.
    â€˜I think they’re my friends. I don’t know. Perhaps I’d better find out before they know I’m here.’
    â€˜Oh, they’ll know by now. She hears everything. What’s said on the roof, she hears in the kitchen. She told me not to tell you.’ He was shaken by a doubt: could this child be in danger? But he couldn’t believe it. What could they do to her? He went cautiously up the unlighted stair: once a board creaked. The staircase made a half-turn and he came suddenly upon the landing. A door stood open; an electric globe, under a pink frilly silken shade, shone on the two figures waiting for him with immense patience.
    D. said gently, ‘Bona matina. You didn’t teach me the word for night.’
    The manageress said, ‘Come in and shut the door.’ He obeyed her – there was nothing else to do; it occurred to him that never once yet had he been allowed the initiative. He had been like a lay figure other people moved about, used as an Aunt Sally. ‘Where have you been?’ the manageress demanded. It was a bully’s face; she should have been a man, with that ugly square jaw, the shady determination, the impetigo.
    He said, ‘Mr K. will tell you.’
    â€˜What were you doing with the girl?’
    â€˜Enjoying myself.’ He looked curiously round at the den – that was the best word for it. It wasn’t a woman’s room at all, with its square unclothed table, its leather chairs, no flowers, no frippery, a cupboard for shoes. It seemed made and furnished for nothing but use. The cupboard door was open full of heavy, low-heeled, sensible shoes.
    â€˜She knows L.’
    â€˜So do I.’ Even the pictures were masculine of a kind. Cheap coloured pictures of women, all silk stockings and lingerie. It seemed to him the room of an inhibited bachelor. It was dimly horrifying, like timid secret desires for unattainable intimacies. Mr K. suddenly spoke. He was like a feminine element in the male room; there were traces of hysteria. He said, ‘When you were out – at the cinema – somebody rang up – to make you an offer.’
    â€˜Why did they do that? They should have known I was out.’
    â€˜They offered you your own terms not to keep your appointment to-morrow.’
    â€˜I haven’t made any terms.’
    â€˜They left the message with me,’ the manageress said.
    â€˜They were quite prepared, then, that everybody should know? You and K.’
    Mr K. squeezed his bony hands together. ‘We wanted to make sure,’ he said, ‘that you still have the papers.’
    â€˜You were afraid I might have sold them already. On my way home.’
    â€˜We have to be careful,’ he said, as if he were listening for Dr Bellows’ rubber soles. He was dreadfully under the domination even here of the shilling fine.
    â€˜Are you acting on instructions?’
    â€˜Our