"I wonder if you are? Well, as you say, we shall see. If Mina Raff
fixes her mind on him there will be a lot to watch."

"You must speak to him."

"Now there," Lee expostulated, "you make me sick. How--will you tell
me--can I speak to Peyton until he first says something? And when that
happens, as easily as not it may be a cable from Peru. You want to
interfere too much, Fanny, and insist that everybody follow your idea
of right."

She retired into a silence of wisdom that merely looked down on him.
Her face was troubled, her lips tightly compressed. "What time is it?"
she asked sharply; "the ribbon of my watch is worn out. Oh, we can go
home with decency. It makes me rather sick here."

He went below, for his hat and coat, and found the room beyond the
lockers, built as an informal café before the era of prohibition,
occupied by a number of men transferring the balance of fulness from a
row of bottles to themselves.

He accepted a drink, more for the purpose of considering Peyton Morris,
moodily abstracted by the table, than for itself. It seemed to Lee that
the young man had actually aged since the cocktail party at his house,
earlier in the evening. Peyton's mouth was hard and sullen; his brow
was corrugated. "We're going home," Lee told him; "and it seemed to me
that an hour ago Claire was tired."

"She didn't tell me," Peyton responded punctiliously; "and certainly if