Izzy's face seemed to drop toward the floor. Sheila came up off the couch with a choking cry and leaped for the door. Mother Corey's immense arm moved out casually, sweeping her back onto the couch.
"Very convenient," the old man said. "The two of you simply fill out a form—I've got a few left from the last time—and get Izzy and me to witness it. Drop it in the mail, and you're married."
"If you think I'd marry you, you filthy—" Sheila began.
Mother Corey listened attentively. "Rich, but not very imaginative," he said thoughtfully. "But she'll learn. Izzy, I have a feeling we should let them settle their differences."
As the door shut behind them, Gordon yanked Sheila back to the couch. "Shut up!" he told her. "This isn't a game. Hell's popping here—you know that better than most people. And I'm up to my neck in it. If I've got to marry you to keep you out of my hair, I will."
Her face was pasty-white, but she bent her head, and fluttered her eyelashes up at him. "So romantic," she sighed. "You sweep me off my feet. You—Why, you—"
"Me or Trench! I can take you to him and tell him you're mixed up in Security, and that you either have papers on you or out at the Chicken Coop to prove it. He won't believe you if I take you in. Well?"
She looked at him a long time in silence, and there was surprise in her eyes. "You'd do it! You really would.... All right; I'll sign your damned papers!"
Ten minutes later, he stood in what was now a connecting double room, watching Mother Corey nail up the hall door to the room that was to be hers. There were no windows here, and his own room had an excellent lock on it already—one he'd put on himself. Izzy came back as Mother Corey finished the door and began knocking a small panel out of the connecting door. The old man was surprisingly adept with his hands as he fitted hinges and a catch to the panel, and re-installed it so that Sheila could swing it open.
"They're married," Izzy said. "It's in the mail to the register, along with the twenty credits. Gov'nor, we're about due to report in."