"Are you sure?"
"Certain."
The worst of the cab was that it cut short their moments.
It had been standing a whole minute before Johnson's side door. He sent it away.
For fifteen seconds, measured by hammer strokes of their hearts, they were alone. On the streaming doorstep, under the dripping eaves, he held her. He kissed her sweet face all wet with rain.
"Little Winky—little darling Winky." He pushed back her Peggy hat, and his voice lost itself in her hair.
"They're coming," she whispered.
There was a sound of footsteps and of a bolt drawn back. Somebody behind the door opened it just wide enough to let Winny through, then shut it on him.
It was intolerable, unthinkable, that she should disappear like that. Through a foot of space, in a hair's breadth of time, she had slipped from him.