Wounded dignity melted before her laughter. For a time, there in the moonlight, under the scornful regard of the disabled motor-car's twin headlights, these two rocked and shrieked, while the silent night flung back disdainful echoes of their mad laughter.
Perhaps the insane incongruity of their performance first became apparent to the girl; she, at all events, was the first to control herself. Maitland subsided, rumbling, while she dabbed at her eyes with a wisp of lace and linen.
"Forgive me," she said faintly, at length; "I didn't mean to—"
"How could you help it? Who'd expect a hulking brute like myself to be ticklish?"
"You are awfully good," she countered more calmly.
"Don't say that. I'm a clumsy lout. But—" He held her gaze inquiringly. "But may I ask—"
"Oh, of course—certainly: I am—was—bound for
Greenpoint-on-the-Sound—"
"Ten miles!" he interrupted.
The corners of her red lips drooped: her brows puckered with dismay.
Instinctively she glanced toward the waterbound car.
"What am I to do?" she cried. "Ten miles!… I could never walk it, never in the world! You see, I went to town to-day to do a little shopping. As we were coming home the chauffeur was arrested for careless driving. He had bumped a delivery wagon over—it wasn't really his fault. I telephoned home for somebody to bail him out, and my father said he would come in. Then I dined, returned to the police-station, and waited. Nobody came. I couldn't stay there all night. I 'phoned to everybody I knew, until my money gave out; no one was in town. At last, in desperation, I started home alone."