Stacey looked at Mrs. Latimer. “I’ll go, then. You’ll keep me informed—by ’phone?” he pleaded.
She nodded, taking his hand for an instant.
He returned to the other room, dizzily. “She’s sleeping just now,” he said to Marian’s husband. “Will you—have your car take me—home?”
They went out into the hall together. Stacey stumbled, and Ames grasped his arm and held it.
But Mr. Latimer had followed them. “Stacey,” he said, “just a moment.”
Stacey turned mechanically to stare at him. Up to now he had only been vaguely aware of the man’s presence.
“It is perhaps unnecessary for me to warn you to say nothing of this,” said Marian’s father stonily. “It must be kept out of the papers.”
It was just what Stacey needed. He straightened up, anger rushing through him like a hot flood. “Go to hell!” he said, then swung about and walked quickly and firmly downstairs, with Ames following.
At the door of the car the two men gazed at each other helplessly. There was no antagonism between them now. In some odd way they were even united.
“I’m glad you said that to Latimer,” Ames remarked dully.