Sam smiled. “No, ma’am.”
“Does he owe you money?” He could see the underlying blood dye her dusky cheeks when she asked the question desperately, as it seemed to him with a kind of brazen shame to which custom had inured her. She had somehow the air of some gentle little creature of the forests defending her young.
“Not a cent, ma’am. I don’t want to do him any harm.”
“I didn’t hear your name.”
“I haven’t mentioned it,” he admitted, with the sunny smile that was a letter of recommendation in itself. “Fact is I’d rather not tell it till he sees me.”
From an adjoining room a querulous voice broke into their conversation. “Who is it, Norma?”
“A gentleman to see you, Tom.”
“Who is it?” more sharply.
“It is I, Mr. Pelton. I came to have a talk with you.” Yesler pushed forward into the dingy sitting-room with the pertinacity of a bookagent. “I heard you were not well, and I came to find out if I can do anything for you.”
The stout man lying on the lounge grew pale before the blood reacted in a purple flush. His very bulk emphasized the shabbiness of the stained and almost buttonless Prince Albert coat he wore, the dinginess of the little room he seemed to dwarf.