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“What did they say?”

“Just one of them, the rest were laughing most of the time. He was telling them”—the boy said it slowly as if he’d memorized it—“he said some women didn’t know their place. They think they can live in the gutter then go out when they want and brush against people like nothing’s coming off. He was talking loud so we could hear every word and he said a man would be a fool to marry a woman like that and have her brushing against his kids with her gutter ways. It was like that, what he said. Then he spoke your name and he said he’d bet anybody five dollars American you’d changed your mind now about getting married. That’s when she run upstairs.”

The boy frowned, looking at his father, watching his eyes go up to the room. “Why’d he have to say things like that? We were sitting here talking—getting acquainted.”

Calender looked at the boy and saw that he was grinning.

“You know she never once asked me how old I was or if I knew my reader or things like that. She talked to me about affairs and interesting things like I was grown up, like Ma used to do. And, Pa, she called me Jim! Can you imagine that? She called me Jim! If her hair was darker and her nose a little different, I’d swear she was Ma!”

“Don’t say things like that!” Calender was conscious of his voice, and he said quietly, “There’s the difference of night and day.”

“Well, her voice is different too, and maybe she’s a speck taller, though that could be the hat. I never seen Ma in a regular hat. But outside of that, they sure are alike.”

“You know what you’re saying, comparing this woman with your mother?”

The boy looked at him questioningly, but the trace of a smile was still on his face. “I’m just saying they’re alike, that’s all. Maybe they don’t look so much alike, but they sure are alike.” The boy smiled; he was sure his explanation was clear because he understood it so well himself.

Calender was looking at the boy closely now. “What if she’s done something bad?”

“Pa, little Molly’s doing bad things all the time. That’s just the way girls are. Most times they’re not doing serious things, so they have more time to get theirselves into trouble.”

Calender’s eyes remained on the boy. Calender asked: “You think Molly will like her?”

“Couple of bad women like them will get along just fine.” The boy grinned.

Calender left him abruptly, going up the stairs. In a few minutes he came back down, and in front of him was Clare Conway.

They walked across the lobby. Nearing the door, the woman hesitated and looked up at Will Calender. She was unsure and afraid. It was in her wide-open eyes, in the way her fingers held the ends of the crocheted shawl. Then she moved on again as if not under her own power—when Will touched her elbow and said to the boy, “Come on, Jim.”

And when they were out on the ramada the woman’s eyes were looking down at her hands; she could feel Will Calender holding her elbow, she could feel the guiding pressure of his hand, and moved to the right along the ramada, along the line of silent men, hearing only her footsteps and the footsteps of the man at her side. The hand on her elbow tightened. She was being turned gently, and there was no longer the sound of footsteps and when she looked up a man was close in front of her, a man with heavy beard bristles.

“Miss Conway,” Calender said. “This is Mr. Maddox. He’s had such a keen interest in our business, I thought you might like to meet him.”

“Now, Will—” Maddox said, looking at Calender strangely.

“And, Dick,” Calender went on, “this is Miss Conway. Isn’t there something you wanted to say to her?”

“Will—”

“Maybe you’d just like to tip your hat like a gentleman.”

Maddox was staring at Calender almost dumbfounded, but slowly his face relaxed as he realized what Calender was doing in front of all these men and he said mildly, grinning, “Now, Will, I don’t know if I want to do that or not.”

Calender’s fist came around suddenly, unexpectedly, driving against Maddox’s jaw, changing the smile to lopsided surprise and sending him back off the ramada