“Now there,” Lee expostulated, “you make me sick. How—will you tell me—can I speak to Peyton until he first says something? And when that happens, as easily as not it may be a cable from Peru. You want to interfere too much, Fanny, and insist that everybody follow your idea of right.”
She retired into a silence of wisdom that merely looked down on him. Her face was troubled, her lips tightly compressed. “What time is it?” she asked sharply; “the ribbon of my watch is worn out. Oh, we can go home with decency. It makes me rather sick here.”
He went below, for his hat and coat, and found the room beyond the lockers, built as an informal café before the era of prohibition, occupied by a number of men transferring the balance of fulness from a row of bottles to themselves.
He accepted a drink, more for the purpose of considering Peyton Morris, moodily abstracted by the table, than for itself. It seemed to Lee that the young man had actually aged since the cocktail party at his house, earlier in the evening. Peyton's mouth was hard and sullen; his brow was corrugated. “We're going home,” Lee told him; “and it seemed to me that an hour ago Claire was tired.”
“She didn't tell me,” Peyton responded punctiliously; “and certainly if she's low we'll go too.” He rose promptly, and, with his outer garb, accompanied Lee Randon. His step was uncertain, and Lee put a hand under his elbow. “Liquored?” he asked casually.
“Not in my brain,” Peyton Morris returned: “it seems like I could never get drunk again; but my dam' feet are all over the place. Thanks for hanging on to me: I have an idea you are going to drop me pretty quickly.”
“I don't want to question you,” Randon said, “or in any way force a confidence, but, Peyton, in addition to the relationship, I am exceptionally fond of Claire; and, since helping you is practically the same thing as helping her—”
“I wish to Christ I had been sunk in the North Sea,” Morris broke in bitterly.
They were up the stairs and standing on the emptied floor of an intermission. Fanny, prepared to leave, was gazing about for him. “You've been an age,” she cried to Lee; “and, Peyton, Claire is at last looking for you; although she'd kill me for saying it. You had better go outside a minute, first, and clear your head.”
He came very near to her, slightly swaying. “Fanny, you are a darling, but you are hard; you are hard as the Commandments.”