“The majority of the cases are orphans, but they aren’t above separating children from their parents. From immigrant families, especially Irish and Germans. And Italians.”
She stopped and turned to look him directly in the face, as if she expected to see some hidden truth written on his brow.
“It seems I do disapprove of the Society for the Protection of Endangered Children. And most especially I do not approve of Mr. Johnson’s Malthusian philosophy. But thank you for arranging this interview. It was instructive, if not productive. I think I’ll look for a cab.”
Jack said, “There’s one more visit we could make today, if you have time. The lodging house on Duane Street run by the Children’s Aid Society.”
“As we’re already under way,” she said, and then pointed east. “We should be walking that way. To the elevated train.”
“No cab?” Jack said, amused and irritated both.
“No need,” Anna said. “The elevated will take us all the way downtown.”
She started off again, then stopped when she realized she had left him behind.
“Are you coming?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said.
She had a very expressive face, so mobile that Jack could see her irritation giving way, slowly, to confusion and then a kind of abashed awareness. He kept his own expression neutral and waited. After a moment she let out a long breath and started back until she stood directly before him, her face tilted up.
“That was rude of me. I apologize for taking my irritation out on you.”
“Hold on with the apology,” Jack said, as somberly as he could manage. “Maybe I’m a Malthusian and don’t even know it.”
The corner of her mouth jerked. “Malthusians believe that overpopulation will cause economic disaster and the end of civilized society. They put the blame for overpopulation—for everything, really—on the immigrant poor. It’s xenophobia disguised as economic theory.”
“So you’re on the side of the Catholic Church, then. The more children, the better.”
Her mouth fell open and then shut with a small click. “I’m on the side of women,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Those individuals who actually bear and raise children. The human beings whom Malthusians and priests see as no more than mindless breeding stock.”
Jack said, “Now it’s my turn to apologize. I shouldn’t have made light.”
For a span of three heartbeats she studied his face as though she could read his thoughts. Quite suddenly she nodded, and took his arm.
“Children’s Aid,” she said. “Let’s go.”
? ? ?
“I HATE THESE trains,” Jack said with a vehemence that took Anna by surprise. Standing in an overcrowded car, she looked up at him and then dropped her gaze immediately.
“They turn the streets into dark tunnels, shower everything with dirt and cinders, and screech like banshees.”
The wagon swayed so that Anna’s nose almost touched the handkerchief pocket of Jack’s suit coat. He smelled faintly of mothballs, of starch and tobacco. And of himself. People had very distinctive smells; it was one of the first things she had noticed as a medical student. Certain illnesses had distinct smells, too, and Anna attempted to list them for herself in an effort to stem the impulse to raise her head. Because if she did, it would look like she was wanting to be kissed. She had worked hard to put the memory of kissing Jack Mezzanotte out of her head, and she had even managed to do that for as much as an hour at a time.
He shifted a little and, leaning down, spoke directly into her ear. “Maybe I have to rethink this elevated train business. There might be some advantages to it, after all.”
Anna bit her lip in an effort not to laugh, and instead let out a small hiccup of sound.
“What was that?”
His breath warmed the shell of her ear and stirred the few loose hairs that curled against her temple.
“I didn’t say anything.” She was talking to his handkerchief, which was a brilliant white and beautifully embroidered, something she knew because she had its twin at home, the one he had given to her along with half his dinner in the taxi. The next morning she found it in her pocket, and now it sat on her dresser, laundered and ironed and folded to show the initials on one corner. GLM. She had been wondering for days what the L stood for. Lorenzo. Lucian. Leonardo. Lancelot. Lucifer. Lunatic.
“Am I embarrassing you?”
She studied the way his feet were braced against the sway of the train’s motion. Her own two feet, much smaller, between them. Feet entwined. She felt him smiling against her hair.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.
Jack could resist the swaying of the train because he was holding on to one of the overhead straps that were out of Anna’s reach. She had nothing to hold on to—nothing she could, in good conscience, hold on to. She must brush up against him at every curve.