He supposed that in a similar plight the old-fashioned woman--or at least the ubiquitous woman of the special eternal type that fictionists call "old-fashioned"--would have been either a bleating, tremulous gazelle or a brazen siren. But Miss Webling behaved like neither of these. She took his gallantry with a matter-of-fact reasonableness, much as a man would accept the offer of another man's companionship on a tiresome journey. She gave none of those multitudinous little signals by which a woman indicates that she is either afraid that a man will try to hug her or afraid that he will not. She was apparently planning neither to flirt nor to faint. Davidge asked in a matter-of-fact tone: "Do you think you could walk to town? The driver says it's only three-fo' miles." She sighed: "My feet would never make it. And I have on high-heeled boots." His "Too bad!" conveyed more sympathy than she expected. He had another suggestion. "You could probably get back to the home of Mrs. Widdicombe. That isn't so far away." She answered, bluntly, "I shouldn't think of it!" He made another proposal without much enthusiasm. "Then I'd better walk in to Washington and get a cab and come back for you." She was even blunter about this: "I shouldn't dream of that. You're a wreck, too." He lied pluckily, "Oh, I shouldn't mind." "Well, I should! And I don't fancy the thought of staying here alone with that driver." He smiled in the dark at the double-edged compliment of implying that she was safer with him than with the driver. But she did not hear his smile. She apologized, meekly: "I've got you into an awful mess, haven't I? I usually do make a mess of everything I undertake. You'd better beware of me after this." His "I'll risk it" was a whole cyclopedia of condensed gallantry. They sat inept for a time, thinking aimlessly, seeing nothing, hearing only the bated breath of the night wind groping stealthily through the tree-tops, and from far beneath, the still, small voice of a brook feeling its way down its unlighted stairs. At last her voice murmured, "Are you quite too horribly uncomfortable for words?" His voice was a deep-toned bell somehow articulate: "I couldn't be more comfortable except for one thing. I'm all out of cigars." "Oh!" He had a vague sense of her mental struggle before she spoke again, timidly: "I fancy you don't smoke cigarettes?" "When I can't get cigars; any tobacco is better than none." Another blank of troubled silence, then, "I wonder if you'd say that of mine." Her voice was both defiant and trepidate. He laughed. "I'll guarantee to."