"Must I?" she said, dreamily. He came back to her and gave her a gentle shake.
"What is it, you strange little person? I believe you would have been much happier if I had not come back to bother you, eh?"
She denied it vehemently, and exerted herself to talk to him all the way home in the cab. She was solemn again, however, when the time came to say good-bye.
"May I see you again soon?" she asked him wistfully.
"Why, surely! We are going to have lots of larks together, aren't we? Well, what is it now?"
"Oh, I was only thinking!"
"What about?"
She unlocked the door with her latch-key before she replied.
"It seems so odd," she said, "that I care more about your opinion than about anybody else's in the whole world; and yet I have given you the most reason to think badly of me. Isn't it awfully queer?"
She shut the door before he had time to answer her. And Paul walked home, reflecting on the futility of experiments.