"You've acted like a brick to me," he continued.
"Don't let's talk about that now—"
"I don't want you should think I don't appreciate it. If it hadn't been for you, I don't know when I'd've got home—chances are, not till tomorrow night, anyway. The old woman'd've been half crazy."
Joan kept silence.
"My mother," he amended, with a sidelong glance. "There's only the two of us."
"Well," said the girl rising, "if that's so, you'd better get home to her; she won't be any too happy until she sees you—and not then."
Reluctantly he got to his feet. "She thinks I'm a great actor," he observed bitterly; "and I'm nothing but a damn' drunken—"
Joan interrupted roughly: "Ah, can that bunk: it'll keep till tomorrow—and maybe you'll mean it then."
He subsided into silence, whether offended or penitent she neither knew nor cared. She gave him his hat, avoiding his look, and without further speech they found their way out to the gate at One-hundred-and-third Street. Here Joan paused to await an Eighth Avenue car.
"You'd better walk all the way home, even if you don't feel like it," she advised Quard brusquely. "It won't do you any harm, and that mop of yours is a sight."