“Help me! Of course not,” she agreed with rapid vehemence. “If I'm caught, I'm beyond helping. It's of you I'm thinking—you, with your generosity and your splendid plans. If I dragged you down, as I dragged down all the others, my heart would break. I never meant you any harm. You do believe me?”
“I do now.”
“Say you know that I've loved you,” she urged. And, when he hesitated, “Quickly. Time's running short. Let me hear you say just once, 'Santa, I know that you've loved me.'”
“Santa, I know——”
“You wouldn't kiss me?” She asked the question scarcely above her breath. “There've been so many who paid to kiss me. You wouldn't give me the best, that would be the last?”
When his lips touched hers, she smiled.
“They may come now.”
Minutes dragged by like hours. Every sound was magnified into something monstrous. A dozen times they imagined they heard police clearing the corridor, preparatory to bursting in the door. What they heard was only newly-arrived passengers and porters disposing of their baggage. At last suspense became its own anesthetic.
“Did he tell you his destination?” Hindwood whispered.
Not daring to speak, she shook her head.