"There's the child," suggested Raven.
"Yes, that's a drawback," she owned seriously. "On the other hand, it's an advantage. The child might be made the reason: to have somebody look at him, you know. I suppose you saw he isn't quite right."
"Not right? what do you mean? Deficient?"
"I don't know," said Nan. "That or something. Deaf, maybe. But not right. I hear something. It's Charlotte. Kiss me, Rookie. On my forehead"—he did it—"on my forehead, on my right cheek, on my left cheek, on my chin. No, that's all. That's good-night, Rookie—darling Rookie! It is Charlotte. I'll let her in."
She went to the door and opened it and Charlotte appeared, done up in an old-fashioned shawl and—Raven noted in an amused incredulity—a nondescript knitted thing, old-fashioned when he was a child.
"A cloud," he said to himself. "That's what they called the thing."
He felt absurdly thankful at seeing it again. It seemed to assure him that although the surface of life might heave and sink with revolution and the fate of dynasties, Charlotte and her equipment of bed-rock integrity and clouds existed still. She paused in the doorway to take a basket from Jerry, and closed the door on him, after a casual good-night. Raven went into the hall. The basket was generous, in its oval capacity, the contents covered with a napkin.
"Want this carried upstairs?" he asked, but Charlotte shook her head.
"No," she said. "It's for her breakfast. I shall be gone 'fore light." She lifted her sincere gaze to Raven. "I thought I'd come over," she added. "I shouldn't feel easy to have her here all alone. Jerry said he wanted I should."
Raven nodded at her and carried the basket off into the kitchen, and when he came back both women were upstairs and he heard the interchange of voices and their quick tread.