“Magnificent!” said the gentleman. “Of course, blondes are not precisely the fashion, but you are something quite out of the way, you know.”
“You are insolent, sir!” said Miss Taverner.
He laughed. “On the contrary, I am being excessively polite.”
She looked him full in the eyes. “If my brother had been with me you would not have accosted me in this fashion,” she said.
“Certainly not,” he agreed, quite imperturbably. “He would have been very much in the way. What is your name?”
“Again, sir, that is no concern of yours.”
“A mystery,” he said. “I shall have to call you Clorinda. May I put on your shoe for you?”
She gave a start; her cheeks flamed. “No!” she said chokingly. “You may do nothing for me except drive on!”
“Why, that is easily done!” he replied, and bent, and before she had time to realize his purpose, lifted her up in his arms, and walked off with her to his curricle.
Miss Taverner ought to have screamed, or fainted. She was too much surprised to do either; but as soon as she had recovered from her astonishment at being picked up in that easy way (as though she had been a featherweight, which she knew she was not) she dealt her captor one resounding slap, with the full force of her arm behind it.