“Yep. I get a train out of here at nine in the morning and there’s more than six hours to make it.”
She felt it was an odd experience for him climbing up the dark, gas-lit stairs. She led him back to the cribs with candelabra in her hand, and he looked longest at the blond-haired little Joanna, seeing in her broad, upturned, warm face some misty resemblance to his earliest vision of her mother.
“They’re great kids, Moira. But I won’t bluff—I like ’em all best when they’re asleep.”
They came out into the shadowy, haphazard studio, and she knew he felt uneasy and shocked at her surroundings.
“Well,” he said coolly, “of course you’re going to let me help you. I’ve got plenty—more than is good for me—and nobody has more right to it than you. If you say so, I’ll ditch that train to-morrow and have you out of here by noon with the children, into a comfortable place.”
“No, sir,” she laughed.
“But, my God!” he protested, and then added severely. “Moira, I told you early in the evening you looked none the worse for everything.... But you do—you look peaked. You’re fagged.”
“Who wouldn’t be, after a night of it with you! No, no, you dear boy. But we’ll have a night of it again.”
“Thanks for that.”
“And only with you, Rob,” she continued, with emphasis. He caught the hint that he was to keep the secret of her whereabouts.