Blanche frowned. "Say, you talk like a fillum!" She studied Pen afresh. "You don't look dangerous but ... Say, you got to give me some line on your game or nothin' doin'!"
"You've got to trust me," said Pen earnestly, "or we've had all our trouble for nothing."
"Trusting's not what I'm good at, sister," said Blanche with a vigorous gesture. "You give me some line on your game first. Who the Hell are you?"
"Well I'm going to trust you," said Pen. She spread out her arms. "I'm Pendleton Broome."
For once the little creature was shaken out of her uncanny self-possession. She whistled like a boy. Her eyes glistened with excitement. "The Don Counsell case!" she exclaimed. "You're in that! ... Good God! has it got anything to do with me ... with Spike?"
"I think it has," said Pen. "That's for you to say when I've told you all I know."
"Well, shoot! ... shoot!" said Blanche excitedly.
They heard steps coming along the corridor.
Blanche laid a hand on Pen's arm. "Maybe it would be just as well if we saved Babe's tender ears...."
Babe himself opened the door and walked in.
Pen observed at close range that his years probably numbered a few more than the eighteen she had at first given him. He was a graceful youth and a comely one, but his blue eyes were as hard as china. Both Blanche and the Babe had the look of unnatural high school children. Like actors they carefully cultivated and played up this infantile effect. The hard eyes of the young-old pair afflicted Pen with a kind of despair. How could she hope to win such eyes?
The young man pulled off his cap and bobbed his head in Pen's direction. There was something about her that made him distrust his manners. His disillusioned eyes suggested that he could be masterful enough with his own kind of girl.
"Our friend here says her tale ain't fit for men's ears," said Blanche flippantly.
The young man scowled without looking at Pen. "What does she take us for, a pair of suckers?"
"Oh, I'm not afraid of her," said Blanche. "I know who she is."
"Who is she?" he asked, as if Pen were not present.
"Tell you later when I've heard the whole story."
The black eyes flashed on him. "That's for me to say!"
Pen thought with rising hope: "She's beginning to accept me."