By the smoky candle flame Kid Glenn un[pg 351]folded and once more read the letter that kept them there:
—I ought to get to Sainte Lesse somewhere around midnight. Don't say a word to Maryette.
Jack.
Sticky Smith, reading over his shoulder, slowly rolled another cigarette.
"When Jack comes," he drawled, "it's a-goin' to he'p a lot. That Maryette girl's plumb done in."
"Sure she's done in," nodded Kid Glenn. "Wouldn't it do in anybody to shoot up a young man an' then see him step off the top of a skyscraper?"
Smith admitted that he himself had felt "kind er squeamish." He added: "Gawd, how he spread when he hit them flags! You didn't look at him, did you, Kid?"
"Naw. Say, d'ya think Maryette has gone to bed?"
"I dunno. When we left her up there in her room, I turned and took a peek to see she was comfy, but she was down onto both knees before that china virgin on the niche over her bed."[pg 352]
"She oughter be in bed. You gotta sleep off a thing like that, or you feel punk next day," remarked Glenn, meditatively twirling the last drops of eau-de-vie around in his tumbler. Then he swallowed them and smacked his lips. "She'll come around all O. K. when she sees Jack," he added.