"Now, then!" the voice was Betty Farrell's; but it was addressed to Jimmy, not to her husband, this time; "see what you've done, with your dirty fists and your meddling. You've knocked him out—maybe hurt him—"
"He's all right," said Jimmy, a little sheepishly, "I—I never meant—there, he's stirring, now. I——"
"Well, get out, then," Betty Farrell dashed over and nervously opened the door leading out of the suite into the corridor; "go on—get out! I don't want no more fighting in here. Go on—you, too," this last to Daisy who, however, was already at the door.
Jimmy glanced at Daisy as humorously as a man might who had one supremely black eye and a cheek all over blood.
"I guess p'raps we might as well," he said.
There was silence on the way down the three flights of stairs, and comparative uncommunicativeness on Jimmy's part until the end of the walk home was reached and the two stood under the trees just within the Harrison drive-gate.
Then Jimmy, clearing his throat with the air of a man who has made up his mind to say something or die, observed, "I—I got to tell you one blamed good joke, Friend Nixon, before you go in."
"What?" said Daisy.
"Well," said Jimmy, "I—gr-r-h'm—I took you over there to-night to show you a happy little home in a three-room suite. As she turns out, however, that'n ain't so very happy to-night, huh? All my fault, for hikin' young Tom out of his crib."
"Oh, well," said Daisy, "everybody fights, sometimes."