They came to the hall, on a dark street-corner, ostensibly the
quarters of an athletic club, but in reality an institution designed
for pulling off fights and keeping within the police ordinance. Joe
drew away from her, and they walked apart to the entrance.
"Keep your hands in your pockets whatever you do," Joe warned her,
"and it'll be all right. Only a couple of minutes of it."
"He's with me," Joe said to the door-keeper, who was talking with a
policeman.
Both men greeted him familiarly, taking no notice of his companion.
"They never tumbled; nobody'll tumble," Joe assured her, as they
climbed the stairs to the second story. "And even if they did, they
wouldn't know who it was and they's keep it mum for me. Here, come
in here!"
He whisked her into a little office-like room and left her seated on
a dusty, broken-bottomed chair. A few minutes later he was back
again, clad in a long bath robe, canvas shoes on his feet. She
began to tremble against him, and his arm passed gently around her.
"It'll be all right, Genevieve," he said encouragingly. "I've got
it all fixed. Nobody'll tumble."
"It's you, Joe," she said. "I don't care for myself. It's you."
"Don't care for yourself! But that's what I thought you were afraid
of!"
He looked at her in amazement, the wonder of woman bursting upon him
in a more transcendent glory than ever, and he had seen much of the
wonder of woman in Genevieve. He was speechless for a moment, and
then stammered:-
"You mean me? And you don't care what people think? or anything?--
or anything?"
A sharp double knock at the door, and a sharper "Get a move on
yerself, Joe!" brought him back to immediate things.
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