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?”