“Deaf? Oh, no,” she said briskly, in fluent but exotic English. “You wouldn’t need ear-pads if you were. You don’t want to be bothered—that’s all. I know the trick; you got it out of Herbert Spencer!”
The assault had nearly disabled the Professor for farther resistance; but he rallied his wits and answered stonily: “I have no time-table. You’d better consult the guard.”
The lady threw her spent cigarette out of the window. As the smoke drifted away from her features he became uneasily aware that they were youthful, and that the muscles about her lips and eyes were contracted into what is currently known as a smile. In another moment, he realized with dismay, he was going to know what she looked like. He averted his eyes.
“I don’t want to consult the guard—I want to consult you,” said the lady.
His ears took reluctant note of an intonation at once gay and appealing, which caressed the “You” as if it were a new pronoun rich in vowels, and the only one of its kind in the world.
“Eeee-you,” she repeated.
He shook his averted head. “I don’t know the name of a single station on this line.”
“Dear me, don’t you?” The idea seemed to shock her, to make a peculiar appeal to her sympathy. “But I do—every one of them! With my eyes shut. Listen: I’ll begin at the beginning. Paris—”
“But I don’t want to know them!” he almost screamed.
“Well, neither do I. What I want is to ask you a favour—just one tiny little enormous favour.”