Then she saw Marcus and revived abruptly. She flung herself across the room and into his lap, wrapping her arms around him. "Mark, dear," she said, smiling cattily over his head at her sister.
Marcus sighed regretfully. Heaven knew what the boy in his innocence would tell his mother. He worked himself loose from the girl's embrace and explained why he was here.
"Then we're going to Messy Row?"
"In a few months," said Chloe. "Marcus is setting up a perpetual fund to help those who can't pay their fare."
"Oh, I'll go," said Mary Ellen, looking steadily at Marcus. "But you needn't expect me to get married."
Marcus smiled to himself. She was dramatizing. When she found her choice wasn't limited she would scarcely remember him. There was, if Marcus now recalled correctly, a Joe Ainsworth, twenty-four or five. What made him seem older, when Marcus had first thought of him, was his prematurely gray hair. The two should be a perfect match. Chloe could not have Joe Ainsworth after all, but there'd be another for her.
"Please change, Mary Ellen," said Marcus. "We're going to dinner."
"All of us?"
"Certainly all of us," said Marcus dryly, noting her disapproval.