“I beg your pardon?”
“Is that so?”
Archie began to feel certain tremors. Her eyes were gleaming, and her determined mouth had become a perfectly straight line of scarlet. It was going to be difficult to be chatty to this girl. She was going to be a hard audience. Would mere words be able to touch her heart? The thought suggested itself that, properly speaking, one would need to use a pick-axe.
“If you could spare me a couple of minutes of your valuable time—”
“Say!” The lady drew herself up menacingly. “You tie a can to yourself and disappear! Fade away, or I’ll call a cop!”
Archie was horrified at this misinterpretation of his motives. One or two children, playing close at hand, and a loafer who was trying to keep the wall from falling down, seemed pleased. Theirs was a colourless existence and to the rare purple moments which had enlivened it in the past the calling of a cop had been the unfailing preliminary. The loafer nudged a fellow-loafer, sunning himself against the same wall. The children, abandoning the meat-tin round which their game had centred, drew closer.
“My dear old soul!” said Archie. “You don’t understand!”
“Don’t I! I know your sort, you trailing arbutus!”
“No, no! My dear old thing, believe me! I wouldn’t dream!”
“Are you going or aren’t you?”