"Of course I was. It was very pathetic," he replied, gently. And she thought "pathetic" an odd word to use. Why pathetic? She did not like to ask him. Then he made the further curious statement that this crowd was the tamest he had ever seen.
"I don't call it tame," she said, with a laugh, as the yells of the larrikin and his fellows rent the air around them.
He responded to her laugh with a pleasant smile, and his voice was friendlier when he spoke again. "But I am quite delighted with it, unimpressive as it is. It is composed of people who are not wanting anything. I don't know that I was ever in a crowd of that sort before. I feel, for once, that I can breathe in peace."
"Oh, I wish I could feel so!" she cried. The carriages, in their slow progress, were now turning at the top of Collins Street, and the hubbub around them had reached its height.
"It will soon be over now," he murmured encouragingly.
"Yes," she replied. In a few minutes the crush would lessen, and he and she would part. That was what they thought, to the exclusion of all interest in the passing spectacle. Even as she spoke, the noise and confusion that had made a solitude for their quiet intercourse sensibly subsided. The tail of the procession was well in sight; the heaving crowd on the Treasury steps was swaying and breaking like a huge wave upon the street; the larrikin was gone. It was time for the unknown gentleman to resume the conventional attitude, and for Elizabeth to remember that he was a total stranger to her.
"You had better take my arm," he said, as she hastily disengaged herself before it was safe to do so, and was immediately caught in the eddy that was setting strongly in the direction of the Exhibition. "If you don't mind waiting here for a few minutes longer, you will be able to get home comfortably."
She struggled back to his side, and took his arm, and waited; but they did not talk any more. They watched the disintegration and dispersion of the great mass that had hemmed them in together, until at last they stood in ease and freedom almost alone upon that coign of vantage which had been won with so much difficulty—two rather imposing figures, if anyone had cared to notice them. Then she withdrew her hand, and said, with a little stiff bow and a bright and becoming colour in her face—"Thank you."
"Don't mention it," he replied, with perfect gravity. "I am very happy to have been of any service to you."
Still they did not move from where they stood.