Moira interrupted as the patrolman was about to grasp Harlindew’s shoulder.
“Officer,” she said hurriedly, “I know this man. He lives in the same house I am in. I think I can get him to go with me, if you won’t take him.”
“Sure. That’s all right. I don’t want him if he’ll get out of here. I’ve had this bird before, and it might go hard with him.”
“Thank you,” she said fervently. Miles was on his feet in a second, a little unsteady but effusively polite, repeating the words “divine Madonna” in a voice that must have carried to many windows.
“Officer,” he said, “meet Madonna—no, meet Ariadne. Ariadne, the night is a labyrinth—you bring me a thread.”
At his door he insisted upon going up with her—“just for a second”—and she could not refuse him. He sat on the couch, pursuing a strange, disjointed tale of the day’s adventures. He told twice about a steel-worker he had met in a bootlegger’s house, who once had worked on the Woolworth, forty stories up. “Said he never went up on the steel in the morning without three whiskies—if he had he’d a fallen off,” said Miles. “That’s good—if he had he’d a fallen off.” The idea seemed to fill him with extraordinary delight. But other things were on his mind also. Some one he called “the damn buzzard at the office” came in for a large share of abuse.
“If you want to see the damned buzzard to-morrow, you’d better go downstairs and sleep,” she suggested. “You won’t feel much like work.”
“Work? Never mind work.... Valuable man.... Know my own value.... Not at all sleepy, anyway....” A moment later while she was out of the room he stretched full length on the couch and fell asleep.
She did not have the heart to wake him in the morning. If her own racket, as she flew about preparing to leave, had no effect upon his deep unconsciousness, it would probably take too much effort anyway. At noon, however, she found him just beginning to stir about, making coffee in her little kitchen, for which he apologized, but with no sheepishness. He seemed, on the contrary, to find excessive enjoyment in having awakened in a strange place, invaded by a lovely hostess. She took the rôle of cook out of his hands.
“Well,” he said when they were seated, “I suppose I am in a pickle. Must say something to Jones. Wonder what it’ll be. All’s fair, I imagine, in war and business. Any old alibi goes.”