"All right," he assented. He moved tentatively a foot or so away, checked, turned back. "I suppose this is good-bye—?" he said, offering his hand.
"I guess it is," she agreed without emotion. Barely touching his clammy and tremulous fingers, she hastily withdrew her own.
A southbound car was swinging down to them, not a block distant. Quard eyed it with morose disfavour.
"At that," he said suddenly, "maybe this wouldn't've happened if you hadn't been so stand-offish. I only wanted to be friends—"
In her exasperation Joan gave an excellent imitation of Miss May Dean's favourite ejaculation. "My Gawd!" she said scornfully—"if you can't think of any better excuse for being a souse than to blame it on me.... Good night!"
The car pulled up for her. She climbed aboard—left him staring.
XIV
Though it was after three in the morning when Joan got home, she wasn't, as she had thought to be, the only waking person in the house. She had no sooner entered than, fagged though she was, she grasped this knowledge with a thrilling heart.
Beneath the door of the back-parlour a thin yellow line of light shone, as brilliant in the obscurity as the rim of a newly minted coin. She paused; and there came to her ears the swift staccato chattering of a typewriter.