Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/320

Rh thrown up, not a door opened; it was nothing. Presently the policeman came his round, and took it away.

My balcony enjoys a happy mean. There are no flowers, nothing fancy about it, but it is painted, like the rest of the house, once every three years. The house on the left is dingy and jealous. The balcony there is latticed all round, and on the roof, high above, two jagged chevaux-de-frise mark the boundaries. The house on the right seems ordinary and commonplace. At certain and regular hours the door opens, and a white-haired lady, leaning heavily on a gold-headed stick, walks out and across the road into the garden beyond. She has a kind, benevolent face; a face that instinctively inspires confidence and trust. No one else ever seems to leave the house, but on a sunny afternoon a light-haired girl may occasionally be seen for a moment, hanging a caged goldfinch out or watering the ferns and plants.

To the friendless, aimless man there is a humanising fascination in idly watching the meaningless trivialities of the little world around him. In piecing together the casual incidents and building upon the passing commonplaces he loses his oppressing sense of utter loneliness, and invests his neighbour with an interest of comedy or tragedy as may seem most appropriate. A passing word, an intercepted smile, a shrinking look, each becomes the key to a chapter of romance and contributes to the unreal creation of his imagination.

In this way I had come to take an interest in the silver-haired lady next door, and assigned to her the rôle of fairy godmother, and pictured her as a benevolent intervener in the destinies of numerous protégés. One evening this imaginative conceit was strengthened by a pretty incident. I was on the balcony, watching the white light of the evening pale into a faint opal dusk, when a cab rumbled along the road below me,