"It's no kind of a way——" Tenney began, and then pulled himself up. Raven believed that he meant it was one thing to invoke the Founder of his religion in a sacerdotal sense, but not for the comforting certainty of a real Presence. "Seems if anybody's crazed. Seems if——" Here he broke off again, and Raven took satisfaction in the concluding phrase: "It's no way to talk when a man's lamed himself so's't he can't git round the room 'thout bleedin' to death."
By this Raven understood the man was, in an hysterical way, afraid of Tira and her surprising invocation. He judged things were looking rather better for her, and went off almost cheerfully, without waiting for her return.
XXVI
When Raven came to Nan's, he went in without knocking and found the house still. He called her name, and she answered from an upper distance. Presently she appeared, traveling bag in hand, and came down to him.
"You really want me, Rookie?" she asked him, pausing at the closet door where she had hung her hat and coat. "You want an unattached female, unchaperoned, very much at large?"
"I want her," said Raven, "more than anything else I'm likely to get in this frowsy world. As to chaperons, Charlotte will do very well, without legging it over here every night to keep you in countenance."
Nan put on her hat and coat, and he picked up the bag.
"Back door locked?" he asked.
She laughed.