“You'd better ask Mr. Dodd to escort you. And I trust that the talk you and he will have will bring both of you to your senses.”
She hurried away up the alley with Farr, after he had unlocked the front door, finding the key on the inside.
“I am sorry I must hurry you,” he apologized, “and if you cannot keep up I must desert you when we get to a well-lighted street.”
She drove a sharp side glance at him and did not reply. Probably for the first time in her life she heard a young man declare with determination that he was in a hurry to leave her. Even a sensible young woman who is pretty must feel some sort of momentary pique because a young man can have engagements so summary and so engrossing.
He offered her his arm that they might walk faster. Her touch thrilled him. He was far from feeling the outward calm that he displayed to her.
They did not speak as they hurried.
Both were nearly breathless when they came out on the Boulevard. He saw the big clock—its hands were nearly at the right angle.
“Good night!” she gasped, and she put out her hand to him. “I thank you!”
“It was nothing,” he assured her.
When their palms met they looked into each other's eyes. It was a momentary flash which they exchanged, but in that instant both of them were thrilled with the strange, sweet knowledge that no human soul may analyze: it is the mystic conviction which makes this man or that woman different from all the rest of humankind to the one whose heart is touched.