His voice had risen and Anne motioned him hastily to lower it.
"It's terrible, dear, but please don't wake papa. He has to have all the sleep he can and if he wakes now he'll have a hard time getting to sleep again."
The old man in the next room must not be wakened! He was indeed the great, safe, sane, middle-class incarnate. James Mitchell and his daughter Anne! With her "It's terrible, dear."
"Don't you think you'd better go straight home, you're tired out," Anne suggested after a short silence.
Roger shrugged. "I'm not tired, not bodily tired. I couldn't sleep if I went home."
Remembering the tomb-like stillness of which Roger had complained, Anne laid her hand on his arm.
"I'll come the first thing in the morning, Roger. Now papa has the chair, it helps such a lot. I'll come up two or three afternoons a week, but I don't really need to be here steadily."
"Don't come unless you feel you want to," Roger said dully and moved to the door. He opened it cautiously, no need to warn him now. They tiptoed to the stair-head, kissed perfunctorily, and Anne watched him to the door which he closed noiselessly. The next moment the chug of a starting motor drew Anne's attention and she hurried to a front window. A taxi was just leaving, the driver's head bent to catch Roger's instructions.
He had come in a taxi, kept it waiting, and now was going back in it!
"And he thinks he's consistent," Anne whispered with quiet bitterness. "Dollars wasted and—'thousands never have enough to eat.'"