Renny's voice hardened. "What are you talking about, Wake? What fortune?" What the devil had the child in his mind?
"I dunno. . . . I say, Renny, I love watching your face. The way your nostrils go. They're funny. And the way you wiggle your eyebrows. I love watching you, more 'specially when you don't know it."
How cleverly the little rascal could change the subject! Renny laughed. "Well, I guess you're the one person who does, then."
Wakefield stole a sly look at him. "Oh no. There was someone else. Alayne. She loved watching you. I often caught her at it."
His elder sent forth a cloud of smoke. "What surprises me is the number of things you know which you've no right to know, and how slow you are on the uptake with useful information."
Wakefield closed his eyes. "He's getting himself worked up to cry," thought Renny. He asked: "How about those legs? Nice and warm now? That nasty feeling gone, eh?" He put his hand under the clothes and began soothingly to rub them.
Alayne! What was she doing to-night? Was she happy? Forgetting him? Oh no, she wouldn't forget—any more than he! He wished to God he could forget! It had always been so easy for him to forget—the natural thing. And now, after more than a year, a sudden mention of her name sent the same tremor through him—gave him a sudden jolt, as though his horse had stumbled. . . . He rubbed the little legs rhythmically. Wake slept. The room was dimmed by a blue-grey haze of smoke. . . . He heard Finch moving in the room above and remembered that the boy's school fees were overdue. He unlocked a drawer and took out a slim roll of banknotes. Separating three tens and a five, he put them into an envelope, addressed and sealed it.
In the attic the only sign of habitation was the rim of light beneath Finch's door. He was about to turn the knob when a bolt was shot on the inside and he heard the boy's quick breathing.
