"You will look a fool if you do. A great tall girl like you," said he, trying to be funny. And it did sound funny. I suppose I must have been pretty nervous, after all I'd gone through with Ellaline, for I almost giggled, but I didn't, quite. On the contrary, I marched on like a war-cloud about to burst, and proved my non-British origin by addressing a cabman in the Parisian French I've inherited from you. I hoped that the boy couldn't understand, but he did.
"Mademoiselle, I have to go to the Gare de Lyon, too," he announced, "and it would be a very friendly act, and show that you forgive me, if you'd let me take you there in a taxi-motor, which you'll find much nicer than that old Noah's ark you're engaging."
"I don't forgive you," I said, as I mounted into the alleged ark. "Your only excuse is that you're not grown up yet."
With that Parthian shot I ordered my cocher, who was furtively grinning by this time, to drive on as quickly as possible.
Of course the horrid child from Surbiton or somewhere didn't have to go to the Gare de Lyon; but evidently he regarded me as his last hope of an adventure before returning to his native heath or duckpond; so, naturally, he followed in a taxi-motor, whose turbulent, goodness-knows-what-horse-power had to be subdued to one-half-horse gait. I didn't look behind, but I felt in my bones—my funny bones—that he was there. And when I arrived at the Gare de Lyon so did he.
The train I'd come to meet was a P. and O. Special, or whatever you call it, and it wasn't in yet, so I had to wait.
"Cats may look at kings," said my gay cavalier.
"Cads mayn't though," said I. Perhaps I ought to have maintained a dignified silence, but that mot was irresistible.
"You are hard on a chap," said he. "I tell you what. I've been thinking a lot about you, mademoiselle, and I believe you're up to some little game of your own. When the cat's away the mice will play. You've got rid of your friend, and you're out for a lark on your own. What?"
Oh, wouldn't I have loved to box his ears! But this time I was dignified and turned my back on him. Luckily, the train came puffing into the station, and he ceased to bother me actively, for the time; but the worst is to follow.