absolutely awful—but there was something else. I'd pulled my handkerchief out of my pocket, and with it a note from Arthur Leigh. There was nothing to that, but he'd called me 'darling Finch,' and Renny and Piers went right up in the air over it." His face twitched as he remembered the scene.
"Finch, do you tell me that they read your letter?"
"I told Piers he might."
"But why?"
"I forget."
It was useless; she could never understand them. "But why should they have been angry? It was harmless enough, surely."
He flushed a dark red. "They didn't think so. They thought it was beastly. Neurotic, and all that. Oh, you can't understand. It was just the last straw." He clasped his hands between his knees, and Alayne saw that he was shaking. She got up quickly. She was afraid he was going to cry, and she could not bear that. Something in her would give way if he cried. She must hang on to herself. She said, almost coldly: "So it was then you decided to run away?"
"Yes. I stayed in my room all day. Lay on the bed trying to think. Then, when night came, I sneaked out with a suitcase of clothes and got a late bus into town on the highway. In the morning I took the train for New York."
"And you've been here three weeks?"
"Yes. I've never written home either."
"What have you been doing, Finch?"
"Trying to get a job." He raised a miserable young face to hers. "I thought it'd be easy to get one here, but I simply can't round up anything. There seemed to be dozens ahead of me whenever I answered an advertisement. Gosh, it's been awful!"
She looked down at him with compassion. "But why in the world didn't you come to me before? It hurts me to think that you've been walking the streets here looking for work, and have never come to see me."
"I didn't want to come until I had got something, but
