In clipped sentences Philip told of the accidental street meeting with Jean, and of the dinner à deux at Charpiot’s, winding up with: “It fairly gave me a heartache to see how hungry she was. She said she hadn’t had time to go out to luncheon, but I am morally certain that was only half of the truth. The other half was that she couldn’t afford to feed herself in the middle of the day.”
Bromley whistled softly.
“Say, Philip, that is tough! I know, because I have been there myself. What else did you find out?”
“After dinner I walked home with her, though she didn’t want me to. When we reached the place I saw why she had tried to shake me. They are living in a shabby tenement block down there within a stone’s throw of the Corinthian. She apologized for not being able to ask me in.”
“Suffering Scott!—in that neighborhood? Wasn’t there anybody to tell them what they were getting into down there?”
“She gave me to understand that there was no choice; that they were obliged to take shelter where they could find it—and afford it. They know—or at least she does—what sort of people they are mixing with. She says they are kind to her and her mother and the children.”
Bromley nodded slowly. “People of that sort would be—to hard-luck people of her sort. That is one of the queer things in this mixed-up world of ours. So far as sheer safety is concerned, she is probably just as safe in that tenement dive as she would be in the most respectable mansion in Denver. All the same, we ought to get them out of there. Have you thought of anything?”
“No; I can’t think. I had a crazy fit just after she left me, and I haven’t been able to think of much else since.”
“Suppose you unload on me and get it off your chest,” Bromley suggested.
“I will, because you ought to know. If you are to go on living in the same apartment with a howling maniac——”