"Say the word," he suggested serenely to the girl, "and I'll bundle this animal back into that taxi and direct the driver to the nearest accident ward. I'd rather like to, really."
"Get rid of this microbe," interrupted the other savagely—"unless you want him buried between glass slides under a microscope."
The girl turned to P. Sybarite with pleading eyes and imploring hands.
"If you please, dear Mr. Sybarite," she begged in a tremulous voice: "I'm afraid I must speak alone with this"—there was a barely perceptible pause—gentleman. If you won't mind waiting a moment—at the door—?"
"If it pleases you, Miss Lessing—most certainly." He drew back a step or two. "But speaking of microbes," he added incisively, "a word of advice: don't tease 'em. My bite is deadly: neither Pasteur nor your family veterinary could save you."
Ignored by the man, but satisfied in his employment of the last word, he strutted back to the brownstone stoop, there to establish himself, out of earshot but within, easy hail.
Hearing nothing, he made little more of the guarded conference that began on his withdrawal. The man, entering the dooryard, had cornered the girl in an angle of the fence. He seemed at once insistent, determined, and thoroughly angry; while she exhibited perfect composure with some evident contempt and implacable obstinacy. Nevertheless, in a brace of minutes the fellow seemingly brought forth some telling argument. She wavered and her accents rose in doubt:
"Is that true?"
His reply, if inaudible, was as forcible as it was patently an affirmative.
"I don't believe you!"