But she had reckoned without her youth.
II
"Say, kid, what you doin' all alone?"
A hand passed familiarly through her arm.
Her brain turned somersaults, raced. Should she burst into tears? Turn upon him with a frozen stare? Appeal for help?
Then she discovered that although astonished she was not at all terrified; nor very much insulted. Why should she be? A casual remark of the sophisticated Aileen flashed through her rallying mind: "When a man is even half way drunk he doesn't know a lady from a trollop, and ten to one the lady's a trollop anyhow."
She heartily wished that Aileen were in her predicament at the present moment. What on earth was she to do with the creature?
She had accelerated her steps without speaking or making any foolish attempts to shake him off; but she knew that her face was crimson, and one girl tittered as they passed, while another, appreciating the situation, laughed aloud and cried after her: "Don't be frightened, kid. He's not a slaver."
Irrepressible curiosity made her send him a swift glance from the corner of her eye. He was a young man, thick set, with an aggressive nose set in a round hard face. His small, hard, black eyes were steady, and so were his feet. He did not look in the least drunk.
"I think you have made a mistake," she said quietly, and with no pretense at immense dignity (she could hear Aileen say: "Cut it out. Nothing doing in that line here"). "I, also, have made a mistake—in walking at night on this street. Would you mind letting go my arm? I think I'll take a car."