"No, sir."
"Did she say anything about marriage at all?"
"No, sir."
She had not been married. Peewee knew that and knew that his father knew it too. Why was his father asking this?
"When she gave you my name, what did she say to you about me?"
Peewee considered. "She said I wasn't to tell people the name. She said she and I were the only ones who knew that it was you."
"She didn't speak as if she had been married to me?"
"No, sir."
The answer seemed to satisfy his father. "Son," he said, "I think we've come, all of us, to what is called a show-down. Do you know what that means?"
"Yes, sir," said Peewee. He knew the phrases of the streets.
"I've had to send for you to ask you to help me." He drew Peewee's hands together, holding them between his own. "Will you listen to me and try to understand?"
