“But I could,” asserted Ann confidently. “Won’t you trust me, Tony? I’m sure—sure that I can get you out of this scrape.”
He looked at her in blank amazement. But something in her face convinced him that she was speaking the truth—that he could rely on her.
“If you do,” he said, and his voice rang true as steel, “I give you my word, Ann, that I’ll never get into another. I’ll chuck gambling from this day forth.”
“Will you, Tony? Will you really?” she cried eagerly.
He took her hands in his.
“I promise,” he said simply.
The two strained young faces gleamed palely in the chill dawnlight—on each of them the impress of a stern resolution. Suddenly, moved by an irresistible impulse of compassion, Ann lifted her arms and laying her hands on either side Tony’s face, drew it down level with her own. Then she bent forward and kissed his forehead—tenderly, as his mother might have kissed him.
“Good night, Tony boy,” she said. And a minute later her slender figure flitted, ghost-like, up the stairs to her own room.