“Dear me, how unfortunate!” exclaimed Mrs. Harris, shivering.
“Impossible to stop the swift moving machine, in the short space that separated us, I swerved to the right.
“At that moment the man must have discovered me, for he, too, sprang to the right. The impact was inevitable. I hastened to the unfortunate one’s assistance, and you may appreciate my amazement when I recognized my friend, your own relative. Of course, I conveyed him home at once.”
“How very good of you,” said Hazel, with admiring eyes.
“We shall never be able sufficiently to thank your lordship,” added Mrs. Harris, “and we hope that our dear boy will not expose himself to so great a danger again.”
As to what Sam thought of the explanation, he kept silent; nevertheless he turned half around and would have whistled significantly had he not at that moment checked himself, for fear of again embarrassing his aunt.
It was at this moment Virginia entered the room, insistently ushered in by Mr. Harris, who, profuse in politeness, said:
“Please do me the honor to be seated, for I know you must be fatigued.”
But Virginia, on discovering Rutley, seemed to be suddenly overcome with a timidity quite foreign to her usual self-possession, and shrank away as if to leave the room. Observing her evident embarrassment and, of course, ignorant of the true cause, Mr. Harris concluded she had conceived him as declining her request, and he at once, in a confidential whisper, attempted to reassure her.
“I can accommodate you with a check for five thousand today, and more in a week.”