"No objection to me droppin' around to see the girl first? Entitled to a little natural curiosity. Come, I'll take you up home this evenin'. The girl. No harm."
"You're not serious, Morton. You wouldn't upset things. You wouldn't tell—that—child!"
"Why, not in a thousand years, honey, unless you forced me to it. Well, you've forced me. Come, Hattie, I'm seein' you home this evenin'."
"You can't put your foot—"
"Come now. You're too clever a woman to try to prevent me. Course there's a way to keep me from goin' up home with you this evenin'. I wouldn't use it, if I were you. You know I'll get to see her. I even know where she goes to school. Mighty nice selection you made, Hattie, Miss Harperly's."
"You can't frighten me," she said, trying to moisten her lips with her tongue. But it was dry as a parrot's. It was hard to close her lips. They were oval and suddenly immobile as a picture frame. What if she could not swallow. There was nothing to swallow! Dry tongue. O God! Marcia!
That was the fleeting form her panic took, but almost immediately she could manage her lips again. Her lips, you see, they counted so! She must keep them firm in the slippery shine of the comedy black.
"Come," he said, "get your make-up off. I'll take you up in a cab."
"How do you know it's—up?"
"Why, I don't know as I do know exactly. Just came kind of natural to put it that way. Morningside Heights is about right, I calculate."