“I was just trying to find out about men,” she confessed sweetly. “I’ve known so very few....”
“Ah, yes, you were telling me how you came to let me speak to you in Down Street,” he remembered. “Well, you know, I certainly wouldn’t have dreamed of speaking to you if I had known who you were. I would have been frightened....”
“And now—aren’t you frightened?”
“Oh, no! I like you, Pamela Star.”
And again they laughed together, but, suddenly, she became very earnest; and he wondered at himself for not having observed before that the candid eyes were sad and that her mouth was just a little sad, as of a woman who might cry but will not.
“And now I’ll confess to you, since you say you like me,” she told him without jest, “that I asked you here under false pretences....”
“But you’ve made no pretences at all!” he broke in quickly. “That’s what is so nice about you....”
“I told you,” she insisted, “that I asked you to come in because I wanted you to talk to me a little. I lied, my friend. I asked you to come in because I wanted to make sure if I liked you or not. And if I did like you I intended to show you something. I’ve simply got to show it to someone, don’t you see? Something important.”
“In fact,” she said very slowly, “I’m going to show you the most important—how does one say it?—factor in my life. Come, stranger.”