He opened the door.
A girl he had never seen before said: “Good evening.”
She had a slightly Cockney voice and an ingratiating manner, and a smile he didn’t much like. She was made up more than most, which spoiled rather than improved a kind of everyday prettiness. She wore a red hat and a pink coat, a clash which even Jim didn’t fail to notice.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Is Betty Driver in, please?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid you have the wrong house, no Betty Driver lives here.”
“Oh,” she said, and her face dropped and she looked younger and woebegone. Then she backed away and looked up at the number painted on the fanlight, a clear, black 24 in letters six inches high. She looked back at him. “This is number 24, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, but I assure you—”
“But she must live here, she told me she did!”
Jim would have laughed, but for that little look of dismay and distress. There was no one named Driver here, and he was quite sure that Mrs. Blake would not have taken another lodger without first telling him.
“I’m awfully sorry.”
“But—but it’s absurd, she told me.”
“I’m sorry,” Jim repeated more briskly, “but Mr. and Mrs. Blake live here, and neither of them is in just now. I’m the only other occupant of 24 Middleton Street, and my name isn’t Driver, it’s Jones.”
“Jones?” She seemed to breathe her disbelief into the name.
“James Matthison Jones,” he repeated firmly. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
“Oh, well,” she said, as if she wasn’t really convinced. “Well—oh, well, all right, I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“It’s no bother,” Jim said, and waited until she had turned away and was on the pavement, before he closed the door. He gave a mirthless kind of laugh as he went back to the kitchen, sat down and discovered that he’d forgotten the table-napkin, and decided to make do without it. The food which had been so hot was now almost too cold, but he finished it, and pulled a dish of apples and custard towards him. He was weighing into the rock cakes again when there was another ring at the front door bell.