Finally they started off again. Skip didn’t say anything until they got to the car. The dog frisked off home, and Skip faced the street light and said, “If anything goes wrong on this thing, someone’s going to get hurt. Bad hurt.” His tone was sharp and mean.

Eddie thought, Skip’s thinking about Karen. But he couldn’t be sure. Skip might be thinking about him, too. It was right at that moment, stepping into the car, that Eddie realized how utterly intent Skip was on getting the money.

CHAPTER TWO

Karen Miller laid her coat across the back of the chair and looked with a touch of shyness around the room. A few students were already at their typewriters, one or two pecking desultorily at the keys, but most were still in the hall, smoking a last cigarette or lingering to finish a conversation. Karen sat down, adjusted her skirt across her knees. Her motions were deft and graceful. She put out her hands, settling her fingers on the keys of the typewriter. She ticked off a few imaginary phrases.

A buzzer sounded in the hall. There was a bustle of entry, chairs scraping, a last whisper of talk. The teacher, a tall thin man with a storklike gait, came in from the hall and smiled at the assembled class. He laid a couple of books on the desk. “Good evening, students.”

The chorus answered as usual, “Good evening, Mr. Pryde.”

Karen opened the exercise book on the desk beside the machine, and the memory of a whole series of nights like this, Mr. Pryde and his greeting, the waiting, hopeful, or indifferent ones around her, ticked off in her mind. The faces, the figures were familiar, and Karen thought of them as friends, though in some way she was not able to comprehend she seemed unable to make the opening overtures which might lead to actual acquaintance. It was part shyness but mostly a lack of practice in social give-and-take. She felt awkward in the presence of strangers. It seemed to Karen a sort of miracle that Skip had sought her out and forced her to talk to him.

She knew that Skip must be in his place behind her now. A feeling of warm awareness stole through her; she could almost feel his gaze on her. She wanted to glance back at him, afraid at the same time that this glance would betray all that she felt.

Mr. Pryde left his desk and stalked over to the old phonograph in the corner. He wound the old machine. “Time for an exercise in rhythm. You ain’t got a thing, you know——” He paused for effect. “—if you ain’t got that swing.”