“Come now! Let’s be friends, just for this little while. Let’s begin at once to believe we’ve known each other always—just for to-night. I will be getting out of town to-morrow and we won’t meet again. I’m certain of that.”
“How can I be sure?” Patricia spoke as though thinking aloud.
“They’ve promised me this time. I’ll go away to-morrow. If my papers aren’t ready I’ll leave without them.”
“Will you give me your word?”
“Upon my honor.”
Patricia turned for the first time and looked directly up at him. What value could she set upon the honor of one she knew not? Whatever the feminine process of examination, she seemed satisfied.
“What can I do? It’s almost dusk.”
“I was about to suggest—er—I thought perhaps you might be willing to—er—go and have a bite—to eat—in fact, dinner.”
Patricia stopped and looked up at him in startled abstraction. The word and its train of associated ideas evolved in significant fashion from her mental topsy-turvy. Dinner! With a strange man in a public place! The prosaic word took new and curious meanings unwritten upon the lexicon of her code. There was the tangible presentation of her sin—that she might read and run while there was yet time. How had it all happened? What had this insolent person said to make it possible for her to forget herself for so long?
With no word of explanation her small feet went hurrying down the hill while his big ones strode protestingly alongside.