“Shall I trust you?” she put to him, ever so suddenly.
“Please,” he said.
“Well——” she began childishly, and hesitated. Her eyes, those candid eyes, were very full on him, they searched his. She gulped, smiled, and spoke swiftly:—
“I’m a plumber’s daughter, and yet I own this house and all that’s in it and very much besides. In fact I’m very, very rich.”
“So, of course,” she said softly, “I’m not a virgin. Of course....”
And suddenly, from the recesses of that curious moment, there crept out laughter; and they laughed, those two, right at each other, a little shyly, a little wonderingly, like children uneasy under the burden of a new friendship. And then she said, very seriously:—
“I wouldn’t have let you speak to me in Down Street, if I hadn’t seen that you hadn’t the usual number of arms. You could do less damage with only one arm, I thought....”
“Oh, I can do quite a lot! One’s mind has a thousand arms to hurt with, after all.”
“I see,” said Pamela Star curiously.
And then that one arm made as though to sweep away some debris. “But how did we get talking of myself?”