Greg obeyed. As they returned and circled in front of the hotel she said:
"Don't stop at the entrance. Go on to the end of the building and wait there."
They came to a stop opposite the last of the great windows that lighted the lobby and the lounge of the Meriden. Greg wondered, if the chase were over, what they were to wait for. The answer came directly, conveying an important bit of information obliquely.
She said, pointing to two lighted windows on the third floor of the hotel: "I daren't go in until he goes to bed. Do you mind if I wait here with you?"
"Do I mind—!" said Greg.
His tone was perhaps a little too warm. She glanced at him suspiciously. Greg tried to look unconscious. Meanwhile he was revolving the significance of what she had just said. So she lived here too, and was, she implied, a member of the tall foreigner's household. It occurred to Greg that her speech resembled the man's: they used the same phrases as people do who live together. Certainly in no other respect was there any likeness. Greg frowned. He resented the thought that man and girl might be related.
She broke in on his thoughts by saying in her abrupt, boyish way: "You don't seem like a common taxi-driver."
"Well, I haven't been one long," said Greg smiling.
He reflected that the surest way to win a person's confidence is to offer one's own, and he proceeded to tell her the story of his meeting with Hickey Meech, and how they had changed places, stopping short, however, of the grim dénouement.
The girl was charmed. "Oh, I like that!" she cried bright-eyed. "I'm glad you didn't want to leave America! I love America. I'm an American."