He rose.
'That's awful early for you, Dotty,' he wen 'Maybe you could write Nan and fix it up to g day or so?'
Dorothy was looking up at him. She said rather go with you, Johnny.' The phrase rockec was an echo in it somewhere.
His mother said, 'Dorothy, you go right si this minute. I'll pack for you.'
The women scurried.
'Do you give up?' his father said to John] stood there. Johnny rubbed his head.
There must be such a thing as male intuitior later. Because his father said to him quietly, step, son.'
In the old frame house that stood, smothere< big trees for miles around, the nurse was he] lady to bed in the front room downstairs.
'Such a s^veet little girl, isn't she, Mrs. BarteCi
The old lady's teeth were in the glass and she to smile. She mumbled through her soft old li mire to have a young and pretty face in the he did. There was Josephine. There was Christy.'
'And Miz Bianche.'
(The old lady didn't - include Miz Blanche.] is Nan. Nan. It doesn't suit her.'
'Short names are all the rage,' the nurse said.
In the huge parlor, the other side of tf Blanche Bartee said to her husband Bartholc can't im.agine Dick married to that child. And I can't imagine . . .'
'You don't think he's changed? You don't think he's settled? Dick makes you nervous?'
The bracelets were still. 'No, no,' she murmured nervously.
Upstairs in the hall, at the door of the big back bedroom, Dick said to his fiancee, 'You're tired. Been a long bad day. Sleep well.'
'I think I will sleep,' Nan said. 'I feel at home here. Isn't that strange?'
'No.'
'Why not?' Nan spoke dreamily.
'Because wherever I am is your home, love.' He was murmuring. 'Marry me. Why must we wait?'
'Just a httle while,' Nan said. 'Not too long, darling.'
Dorothy wasn't a chatterer today. Mile after mile slipped undre the car's wheels in the misty morning and she asked no questions, either. But she was a presence. Johnny couldn't forget that she was there. Finally he said, 'What will you do if the Bartees won't take you in?'
'I'll stay in a motel.'
Something about this stubbornness pleased him. 'Then maybe you don't think it's too late.'
'It's late,' she said.
'What do you think of Dick Bartee?'
'I think he's—been around.'
'Is he really in love with Nan?'
'Shes in love,' Dorothy said crisply. 'He gave her an awful rush. She was too used to you, Johnny.'
'What do you mean?'
'Oh ... I don't know. He's too old for Nan.'
'Thirty-two. I'm twenty-eight, of course.'
'You're too old for her, too,' said Dorothy tartly.
Johnny looked sideways. 'You're on the warpath,' he said.
'Oh, Johnny, don't—'
'Don't what?'
'Don't go round the mulberry bush. And don't ever take a he-detector test, either.'
;'Whatl'
'How do you suppose I knew you were lying about not seeing Emily?' Johnny remembered her head on his breast when his heart had jumped. Dorothy now put her cool
fingers gently on his wrist. 'You just made up this job with Roderick Griines. Didn't you?'
He knew his heart jumped again. He took his hand off the wheel, turned it, and put her hand away. 'I've got the job,' he said sternly. 'And none of your tricks.'
She was contrite. 'All right, Johnny. Don't tell me anything more, if you don't want to.'
'Oh I want to,' he said in a moment. 'We're on the same side. Maybe I need you.'
'Maybe,' she murmured. Her head was turned away.
