beautifully shaped small head and remarkably symmetrical features. A dark overcoat hung over one of his arms and he carried a black hat in his hand. He smiled down at the woman and said: “Your idea of a lark’s immense.”
She addressed Robson: “Why have you come here?”
He smiled amiably, raised his shoulders a little. “You said you weren’t feeling well and were going to lie down. When Helen went up to your room to see how you were, you weren’t there. We were afraid you had gone out and something had happened to you.” He looked at her leg, moved his shoulders again. “Well, we were right.”
Nothing in her face responded to his smile. “I am going to the city,” she told him. “Now you know.”
“All right, if you want to”—he was good-natured—“but you can’t go like that.” He nodded at her torn evening dress. “We’ll take you back home, where you can change your clothes and pack a bag and—” He turned to Brazil. “When’s the next train?”
Brazil said: “Six.” The dog was sniffing at his legs.
“You see,” Robson said blandly, speaking to the woman again. “There’s plenty of time.”
She looked down at her clothes and seemed to find them satisfactory. “I go like this,” she replied.
“Now, look here, Luise,” Robson began again, quite reasonably. “You’ve got hours before train time-time enough to get some rest and a nap and to—”
She said simply: “I have gone.”
Robson grimaced impatiently, half humorously, and turned his palms out in a gesture of helplessness. “But what are you going to do?” he asked in a tone that matched the gesture. “You’re not going to expect Brazil to put you up till train time and then drive you to the station?”
She looked at Brazil with level eyes and asked calmly: “Is it too much?”
Brazil shook his head carelessly. “Uh-uh.”
Robson and Conroy turned together to look at Brazil. There was considerable interest in their eyes, but no visible hostility. He bore the inspection placidly.
Luise Fischer said coolly, with an air of finality: “So.”
Conroy looked questioningly at Robson, who sighed wearily and asked: “Your mind’s made up on this, Luise?”
“Yes.”
Robson shrugged again, said: “You always know what you want.” Face and voice were grave. He started to turn away toward the door, then stopped to ask: “Have you got enough money?” One of his hands went into the inner breast pocket of his dinner jacket.
“I want nothing,” she told him.
“Right. If you want anything later, let me know. Come on, Dick.”
He went to the door, opened it, twisted his head around to direct a brisk “Thanks, good night” at Brazil, and went out.
Conroy touched Luise Fischer’s forearm lightly with three fingers, said “Good luck” to her, bowed to Evelyn and Brazil, and followed Robson out.
The dog raised his head to watch the two men go out. The girl Evelyn stared at the door with despairing eyes and worked her hands together. Luise Fischer told Brazil: “You will be wise to lock your door.”
He stared at her for a long moment, brooding, and while no actual change seemed to take place in his expression, all his facial muscles stiffened. “No,” he said finally, “I won’t lock it.”
The woman’s eyebrows went up a little, but she said nothing. The girl spoke, addressing Brazil for the first time since Luise Fischer’s arrival. Her voice was peculiarly emphatic. “They were drunk.”
“They’ve been drinking,” he conceded. He looked thoughtfully at her, apparently only then noticing her perturbation. “You look like a drink would do you some good.”
She became confused. Her eyes evaded his. “Do—do you want one?”
“I think so.” He looked inquiringly at Luise Fischer, who nodded and said: “Thank you.”
The girl went out of the room. The woman leaned forward a little to look intently up at Brazil. Her voice was calm enough, but the deliberate slowness with which she spoke made her words impressive: “Do not make the mistake of thinking Mr. Robson is not dangerous.”
He seemed to weigh this speech almost sleepily; then, regarding her with a slight curiosity, he said: “I’ve made an enemy?”
Her nod was sure.
He accepted that with a faint grin, offering her his cigarettes again, asking: “Have you?”
She stared through him as if studying some distant thing and replied slowly: “Yes, but I have lost a worse friend.”
Evelyn came in, carrying a tray that held glasses, mineral water, and a bottle of whiskey. Her dark eyes, glancing from man to woman, were inquisitive, somewhat furtive. She went to the table and began to mix drinks.
Brazil finished lighting his cigarette and asked: “Leaving him for good?”
For the moment during which she stared haughtily at him it seemed that the woman did not intend to answer his question; but suddenly her face was distorted by an expression of utter hatred and she spit out a venomous
He set his glass on the mantelpiece and went to the door. He went through the motions of looking out into the night; yet he opened the door a bare couple of inches and shut it immediately, and his manner was so far from nervous that he seemed preoccupied with something else.
He turned to the mantelpiece, picked up his glass, and drank. Then, his eyes focused contemplatively on the lowered glass, he was about to speak when a telephone bell rang behind a door facing the fireplace. He opened the door, and as soon as he had passed out of sight his hoarse, unemotional voice could be heard. “Hello?…Yes…Yes, Nora…Just a moment.” He re-entered the room, saying to the girl: “Nora wants to talk to you.” He shut the bedroom door behind her.
Luise said: “You cannot have lived here long if you did not know Kane Robson before tonight.”
“A month or so; but, of course, he was in Europe till he came back last week”—he paused—“with you.” He picked up his glass. “Matter of fact, he is my landlord.”
“Then you—” She broke off as the bedroom door opened. Evelyn stood in the doorway, hands to breast, and cried: “Father’s coming—somebody phoned him I was here.” She hurried across the room to pick up hat and coat from a chair.
Brazil said: “Wait. You’ll meet him on the road if you go now. You’ll have to wait till he gets here, then duck out back and beat him home while he’s jawing at me. I’ll stick your car down at the foot of the back road.” He drained his glass and started for the bedroom door.
“But you won’t”—her lip quivered—“won’t fight with him? Promise me you won’t.”
“I won’t.” He went into the bedroom, returned almost immediately with a soft brown hat on his head and one of his arms in a raincoat. “It’ll only take me five minutes.” He went out the front door.
Luise Fischer said: “Your father does not approve?” The girl shook her head miserably. Then suddenly she turned to the woman, holding her hands out in an appealing gesture, lips—almost colorless—moving jerkily as her words tumbled out: “You’ll be here. Don’t let them fight. They mustn’t.”
The woman took the girl’s hands and put them together between her own, saying: “I will do what I can, I promise you.”
“He mustn’t get in trouble again,” the girl moaned. “He mustn’t!”
The door opened and Brazil came in.
“That’s done,” he said cheerfully, and took off his raincoat, dropped it on a chair, and put his damp hat on it. “I left it at the end of the fence.” He picked up the woman’s empty glass and his own and went to the table. “Better slide out to the kitchen in case he pops in suddenly.” He began to pour whiskey into the glasses.
The girl wet her lips with her tongue, said, “Yes, I guess so,” indistinctly, smiled timidly, pleadingly, at Luise Fischer, hesitated, and touched his sleeve with her fingers. “You—you’ll behave?”
“Sure.” He did not stop preparing his drinks.
“I’ll call you up tomorrow.” She smiled at Luise Fischer and moved reluctantly toward the door.
Brazil gave the woman her glass, pulled a chair around to face her more directly, and sat down.
“Your little friend,” the woman said, “she loves you very much.”
He seemed doubtful. “Oh, she’s just a kid,” he said.
