“Excuse me,” he said, taking off his cap, and he knew she could see him, for they were all in the glare of the auto’s lamps now, “excuse me, but can you tell us if there is any shorter way to get to Fairport than by going back? We are lost, it seems.”
“So–so am I!” faltered the girl.
“What?” exclaimed Ed.
“That is–well, I’m not exactly lost,” and Jack could see her smile faintly. Yet behind the smile there seemed to be sorrow, and it was evident, even in the difficult light of the gas lamps, that she had been crying.
“You’re lost–but not exactly lost,” remarked Ed, with a laugh. “That’s–er–rather odd; isn’t it?” He was anxious to put the girl at her ease. Clearly a strange young girl–and pretty, too, as the boys could see–would need to be put at her ease when alone, after dark, on a country road.
“I–I guess it is,” she admitted, and Jack made a mental note that he liked her voice. Quite discriminating in regard to voices Jack was getting–at least in his own estimation.
“Then you can’t help us much, I’m afraid,” went on Ed. “If you’re a stranger around here—”
“Oh, yes, I’m a stranger–quite a stranger. I don’t know a soul!”
She said it so quickly–bringing out the words so promptly after Ed’s suggestion, that it almost seemed as though she had caught at a straw thrown in her way by a chance wind. Why did she want to make it appear that she was a stranger? And that she did want to give that impression–rightly or wrongly–was very evident to both young men.
“Then we are both–I mean all three–lost,” spoke Jack, good-naturedly. “I guess there’s no help for it, Ed. We’ll have to go back the way we came until we strike the road to Fairport.”