Wint shook his head, some of the sullen anger of the night before returning. He had no wish to be steadied, and he said so. “I can take care of myself,” he told Routt.
Jack nodded. “So you can. But you need something to hold you down. And this’ll do it.” He nudged Wint in the ribs, smiling slyly. “Y’ know, you’ve been hitting it too strong lately. You don’t know when to stop, Wint. This will put the brakes on. Make you tend to business.”
Wint brushed his hand across Routt’s face abruptly. “Cut it,” he said. “Say, Jack, I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything in the world.”
“My father is sore. He thinks I was in on this. So he kicked me out last night.”
“Kicked you out?” Routt was startled and indignant. “Why, say, that’s—Where did you go? Why didn’t you come over to my place?”
Wint said consciously: “No—I went to the Weaver House. They know me there.”
Routt looked quickly around to see if any one had heard. “Sh-h-h!” he warned. “Say, that was a fool thing to do. Don’t let any one find it out. You want to walk straight now—”
Wint cut in. “I want you to go out home and get my steamer trunk and pack it with some things. There’s a blue suit in my closet. And shirts, and so on. Get my overcoat, too. Mother will show you—or Hetty.”
Routt looked at him quickly. “Hetty who?”