“That won't matter.” K.'s tone was cheerful. “I'm not sleeping, anyhow.”
That passed unnoticed until they were on the highroad, with the car running smoothly between yellowing fields of wheat. Then:—
“So you've got it too!” he said. “We're a fine pair of fools. We'd both be better off if I sent the car over a bank.”
He gave the wheel a reckless twist, and Le Moyne called him to time sternly.
They had supper at the White Springs Hotel—not on the terrace, but in the little room where Carlotta and Wilson had taken their first meal together. K. ordered beer for them both, and Joe submitted with bad grace.
But the meal cheered and steadied him. K. found him more amenable to reason, and, gaining his confidence, learned of his desire to leave the city.
“I'm stuck here,” he said. “I'm the only one, and mother yells blue murder when I talk about it. I want to go to Cuba. My uncle owns a farm down there.”
“Perhaps I can talk your mother over. I've been there.”
Joe was all interest. His dilated pupils became more normal, his restless hands grew quiet. K.'s even voice, the picture he drew of life on the island, the stillness of the little hotel in its mid-week dullness, seemed to quiet the boy's tortured nerves. He was nearer to peace than he had been for many days. But he smoked incessantly, lighting one cigarette from another.
At ten o'clock he left K. and went for the car. He paused for a moment, rather sheepishly, by K.'s chair.