"Come on out and have a soda while I'm waiting."
She hesitated, looked up and down—and succumbed. "All right. I'll have to hurry back. I don't need a hat."
Evan was careful to lead her towards Lexington, since it was from the other direction Charley would presumably appear.
They had their soda, never ceasing to "con" each other in the style that has been suggested. Sadie enjoyed it to the full; Evan on the other hand was rather hard put to it to keep up his end, for his thoughts were far away. His fits of abstraction rather added to his attractiveness in the girl's eyes; she couldn't quite make him out.
His problem was how to keep her from seeing Charley before Charley left the house for the last time, and yet be on time himself to follow Charley when he started out.
Issuing from the drug-store, Evan suggested a short walk, to which Sadie was nothing loath. He steered her through another street back to Third avenue, and managed to fetch up as if by accident before a moving-picture palace.
"Let's go in," he said carelessly. "The last show will just be beginning."
Once more Sadie hesitated, made objections—and allowed him to brush them away. Sadie was fascinated. Evan took her by the arm and marched her in in masterful style. For his own ends he chose seats in that part of the house where smoking was permitted.
To Evan's relief the picture proved to be one of which Sadie could wholly approve, and she no longer required to be entertained. She became absorbed in its unrolling. The hard eyes softened a little; clearly she was lifted out of this mundane sphere of rooming-houses and attractive, fresh young men you had to be careful with, into a realm of peculiar magnificence.
Meanwhile Evan watched the illuminated clock with which the proprietor thoughtfully provided his patrons, and made his calculations. He had to figure closely. He knew that all these picture houses let out at eleven, and they were only five minutes' walk from the rooming-house. If the show was over a little early to-night, or if Charley was a little late in starting, all his careful planning would go for nothing.