“I should say not!” he said reassuringly, “I’m only going to let you stay awhile with Miss Allison—so our enemies won’t find you when I’m gone.”
Nance leaned forward.
“Enemies?” she said sharply. “Enemies, you say?”
“A figure of speech,” smiled Fair, “but just the same we don’t want any one beside yourself to know about us. And by the way, my name is Smith at Cordova—and Sonny doesn’t exist.”
“I see,” said the girl slowly, “or rather I don’t see—but as I said before, it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re a wonderful woman. Not one in a million would accept us as you have done—lost waifs, ragged, hiding, mysterious. I didn’t think your kind lived. You’re old-fashioned—blessedly old-fashioned. Why did you accept us?”
“My Mammy says there’s something in a woman’s heart that sets the stamp on a man for good or bad, a seventh sense. I know there is. A woman feels to trust—or not to trust.”
Fair nodded.
“That’s it,” he said, “instinct—but maybe, some day, you may come to feel it has betrayed you—in our case—my case—I mean. What then?”
Nance shook her head.