“Scolding--yes. Oh, I'm only a--well, scolding me, and I was wishing, _wishing_ I could escape. And then suddenly out I shot. And then I look around and she's--” A wave of her hand expressed a disappearance that was by magic agency. “But, _scolding_?” George said. “Need you trouble? She will be all right.” “Oh, I must. I live with her.” “Will she trouble about you?” “I think she will return for me. Please, _please_ go--would you mind?--to the corner, and see if there has been an accident.” From that direction a bicyclist approached. George hailed. “Is there a cab accident round the corner?” The youth stared; called “Rats!”; passed. George interpreted: “It means No. Do you think if you were to take my arm you could walk to the turning?” Quite naturally she slipped a white glove around his elbow. The contact thrilled him. “No nice girl, you know, would do this,” she said, “with a perfect stranger.” George bent his arm a little, the better to feel the pressure of those white fingers. “I am not really perfect,” he told her. She took his mood. “Nor I really nice,” she joined. “In fact, I'm horrible--they tell me. But I think it is wise to follow, don't you?” “Profoundly wise. Who says you are horrible?” She gave no answer. Glancing, he saw trouble shade her eyes, tremble her lips. That beauty should know distress! Very slightly he raised his forearm so that the lock of his elbow felt her hand. He had no fine words. This George was no hero with exquisite ways. He was a most average young man, and nothing could he find but most painfully average words. “I say, what's up?” he asked. She spoke defiantly; but some stupid something that she hated yet could not repress trembled her lips, robbed her tone of its banter. “What's up?” she said. “Why, _you_ would say something was up if you'd just been shot plump out of a cab, wouldn't you?” “Yes, but you were laughing a minute ago.” He looked down at her, but she turned her face. “Now, now, I believe--” He did not name his thought. She looked up. Her pretty face was red. He saw little flutters of eyelids, flutters round the eyes, flutters at the mouth. “Oh,” she said, “oh, yes, and I don't know why. I'm--I believe--” She tried to laugh, but the little flutterings clouded the smile like soft, dark wings flickering upon a sunbeam. “I believe--it's ridiculous to a perfect--imperfect--stranger--I believe I'm nearly--crying.” And this inept George could only return: “I say--oh, I say, can I help you?” She stopped; from his arm withdrew her hand. “Please--I think you had better go. Please go. Oh, I shall hate myself for behaving like this.” So unhappy she was that George immediately planned her a backdoor of excuse. “But you have no occasion to blame yourself,” he told her. “You've had an adventure--naturally you're shaken a bit.”