She waited with eyes averted for the question which should bare all. Instead, she suddenly felt Paul's caress and faced him to meet a smile.
"You are a trump!" he ejaculated. "To know all the while and never give her away!"
He had not understood! Trembling like a reprieved criminal, she heard him go on to complete his self-deception.
"I was going to ask you to let Amy slide after we were married," he said, "but if you believe in her this much, I reckon she's worth helping. I don't suppose all refuge girls are of the Wilkes stripe."
The crisis past, she half regretted that she could not have screwed her courage to the point of a full confession, but this feeling was transitory. Paul rested content with his own explanations and talked of little else than their flat, and she, too, presently found their home-building absorbing.
A more minute inspection of the Lorna Doone, after the signing of the lease, revealed that the outer splendor had its inner penalties.
"Looks like a case of rob Paul to pay Peter, this trip," said the dentist. "Peter is the owner's first name, you know. The woodwork is cheap, the bathtubs are seconds, and the closets, as you say, aren't worth mentioning. I'll gamble the building laws have been dodged from subcellar to cornice. I hear he has run up a dozen like it, and every blessed one on spec. That's why we're getting six weeks' rent free. It's anything to fill the house and hook some sucker who hankers for an investment and never suspects the leases don't amount to shucks."
"Don't they?"
"Ours doesn't. Why, the man as much as told me to clear out when the building changes hands, if I like."
Jean looked round the bright little toy of a kitchen where they stood.