His wits and feet always
had been nimble; that day he excelled himself. Anxiety as to how much he
must carry home at night to replace what he had spent in moving Peaches to
his room, three extra meals to provide before to-morrow night, something
to interest her through the long day: it was a contract, surely! Mickey
faced it gravely, but he did not flinch. He did not know how it was to be
done, but he did know it must be done. "_Get_" her they should not.
Whatever it had been his mother had feared for him, nameless though the
horror was, from _that_ he must save Lily. Mickey had thought it must be
careless nurses or lack of love. Yesterday's papers had said there were
some children at one of the Homes, no one ever visited; they were sick for
love; would not some kind people come to see them? It must have been
_that_ she feared. He could not possibly know it was the stigma of having
been a charity child she had been combating with all her power.
They had not "got" him; they must not "get" his Lily; yet stirrings in
Mickey's brain told him he was not going to be sufficient, alone.
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