Mrs. Klein shook her dark head. "Not with that sick-calf look on her face. The girl's smitten. You watch your step, Mr. Parker."
"I promise," he said. "I'll be back as soon as possible."
The hot room, the face like ashes, the cracked voice. No chair again for Doak. Arnold said, "You went up there last night, I know. Well?"
"I'll make a full report to my superior," Doak said. "I'm not permitted to discuss Department business with anybody, Senator."
Arnold's thin lips were open, his bony jaw slack. "Well, I'll be damned. Do you know who you're talking to, young man?"
"An ex-Senator," Doak answered.
"That's right—and the man who put your superior where he is. He'd still be peddling papers if I hadn't got him into the Department."
Doak said nothing.
"I could get your job in a minute," Arnold went on. "I'm a hell of a long ways from dead, Parker. You'd better wake up."
Doak had no words.