“You mean you’re going to move in?”
“Exactly.”
“With me?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll pose as your brother if you’d like, and you can take an adjoining apartment, but I’m moving in with you. You can do the cooking, and I won’t have to go out. I’ll bet you’re all stocked up so you can keep out of sight, aren’t you?”
“I’ll say I am. I’ve got enough provisions here to last me for a-month. I don’t ever need to go outside that door.”
“Swell!” he told her. “I’ll help you eat them.”
“I’m afraid,” she said, “Raving another room would make the management a little suspicious.”
She was watching him narrowly.
Moraine sipped his drink, dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand as though it constituted a very minor problem.
“Have it your own way,” he said.
Abruptly, she rose from her chair, came over and sat down by his side on the davenport.
“Do you know,” she said, “I always liked you.”
“Swell!” he told her. “That’s going to make it better. I usually fight with women who don’t like me.”
“You won’t fight with me.”
She tilted her chin back, looked up in his eyes and laughed.
Moraine patted her shoulder.
“Good girl,” he said.
She raised her glass to him. Her eyes smiled at him over the rim of the glass.
“Here’s to us,” she said softly, “just us.”
Moraine drained his glass, smacked his lips.
“How about a refill?” he asked.
She nodded, got to her feet and said slowly, “Listen, those documents are valuable. Where’s your suitcase?”
“It’s O.K.,” he told her, “I’ve checked it with the bell captain, and he thinks it’s full of hooch. He’s going to take excellent care of it.”
She placed her head on his shoulder.
“I like you,” she said. “You’re so damn capable. I’ve been crazy about you ever since the first time I saw you... I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
She jumped up as he toned toward her.
“Probably,” she announced, “I shouldn’t have said that. Perhaps it’s the hooch.”
“It sounded swell to me,” Moraine told her. “How about having more hooch and saying more of the same?”
She hesitated a moment, then suddenly nodded, picked up the glasses and said, “You stay right here. I’ll get a refill.”
She walked across the room to the door of the kitchenette, turned and said, “Stay right there and make yourself comfortable.”
She went through the door and a moment later Moraine heard her give a half-scream. He was on his feet when she came back through the door, staring at him with wide eyes, a sheepish smile on her lips.
“I did the most foolish thing,” she said.
“What?” Moraine asked.
“Picked up the siphon of soda water by the top and squeezed the handle as I picked it up. I couldn’t seem to let go of the thing. It squirted all over me. Look at me, I’m a wreck.”
She planted her feet wide apart, extending her hands. The negligee was disclosed as a sodden mass of damp silk which clung to her as though it had been pasted to her skin.
“If you could only mix yourself with a little Scotch and ice,” he said, “you’d be a drink.”
She laughed, moved toward the bedroom, the we. silk clinging to her.
“I’m going to get out of these things right now,” she said. “It won’t take me but a minute.”
She went through the door of the bedroom, slipping off her clothes as she turned to give Moraine a swift smile.
“I won’t be long,” she said, and shut the door.
Moraine smoked a cigarette and had consumed about half of it when she once more appeared, attired in a clinging black dress.
She saw his eyes flit appreciatively over the lines of the gown. “Like it?” she asked.
“I’ll say!”
She stepped to the telephone and said, “Room service... This is Mrs. Gertrude C. Chester, in 306. My husband has joined me, and I’m celebrating. I’m just out of soda water. Can you send up a siphon of soda water right away?”
She dropped the receiver back on the hook and smiled at Moraine.
“How about having them send up your baggage?” she asked.
“I’ll have to go down and get the bell boy to send it up. I told him that, no matter what happened, he wasn’t to take orders about that baggage from anyone else.”
“Yes,” she agreed slowly, “I can see how you felt about it. I’d never have let it out of my possession.”
“Oh, it’s all right; I just didn’t want to be careless about it, that’s all.”
She kept hovering near the door.
“I’m sorry about that drink,” she apologized, “but it won’t take long for the boy to get up here with a siphon of water... I heard the elevator door then... I’ll bet that’s the boy coming with the water.”
She opened the door, looked up and down the corridor and said, “Here he comes now.”
She stepped out into the corridor, standing with one hand on the doorknob.
“I was in a hurry,” she said, and took a step or two away from the door.
Moraine, sprawled on the davenport, his feet thrust out in front of him, continued to smoke.
After a moment, she was back, holding a full siphon of soda water.
“Now,” she said, “well have those drinks.”
She stepped into the kitchenette and a moment later was back with two tall glasses. She handed Moraine one, kept the other, stood close by him for a moment, then sat down on his lap and ran her fingers through his hair.
“Big boy, aren’t you? And strong too, I bet,” she said.
“Taking inventory?” he asked her.
She raised her glass to his.
“To us,” she said, “just us.”
“That’s what the last one was to,” he objected.
“Don’t you like that for a toast?”
“It’s okay, but I want to feel I’m making progress. I don’t want to feel I’m just marking time.”
She laughed, leaned forward, kissed him, and raised the glass to her lips.
“Here’s how,” she said — “and you know the rest of that.”
They drank.
Moraine set down his half-empty glass on the tile table by the davenport.
“Something seems to tell me I’m going to get drunk,” he observed.
“Listen,” she told him, “You want to get your suitcase sent up before you get drunk.”
He sighed wearily, gently lifted her from his lap.
“Okay, sister,” he said, “I’ll go down and bring up the baggage. Don’t drink up all the hooch while I’m gone.”
“You won’t be long?” she asked anxiously.
“Not over four or five minutes. All I’ve got to do is hunt up the bell captain and get that suitcase and a bag.”
“I keep worrying about that. I wish you’d be careful with it. You can do a lot with the stuff that’s in that suitcase.”
He grinned at her.
“Baby,” he exclaimed, “just watch papa!”
He closed the door, took the elevator down to the lobby, hunted up the bell captain.
“Who took that call up to 306 just a minute ago?” he asked.
“I did,” the captain told him. “Why?”
“The lady wanted me to change one word in that telegram,” he said. “It hasn’t gone out yet, has it?”
The bell captain looked at him suspiciously.
“There’s a chap up there in the room that isn’t in the know,” Moraine said. “She had to step out in the corridor to give you the message because we didn’t want him to know it was going out. And then she got to worrying about it — you know, the way women will.”
Moraine took a dollar bill from his pocket.