McTarvie-Birch would
receive her. She reflected that Sophy had probably pledged
her sister to the same secrecy as Mrs. Farlow, and that a
personal appeal to Mrs. Birch might lead to less negative
results.
There was another long interval of suspense before the
porter reappeared with an affirmative answer; and a third
while an exiguous and hesitating lift bore her up past a
succession of shabby landings.
When the last was reached, and her guide had directed her
down a winding passage that smelt of sea-going luggage, she
found herself before a door through which a strong odour of
tobacco reached her simultaneously with the sounds of a
suppressed altercation. Her knock was followed by a
silence, and after a minute or two the door was opened by a
handsome young man whose ruffled hair and general air of
creased disorder led her to conclude that he had just risen
from a long-limbed sprawl on a sofa strewn with tumbled
cushions. This sofa, and a grand piano bearing a basket of
faded roses, a biscuit-tin and a devastated breakfast tray,
almost filled the narrow sitting-room, in the remaining
corner of which another man, short, swarthy and humble, sat
examining the lining of his hat.
Anna paused in doubt; but on her naming Mrs. Birch the young
man politely invited her to enter, at the same time casting
an impatient glance at the mute spectator in the background.
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