She trembled.
'Cold?' said Arthur. 'Let's walk. Evenings beginning to draw in now. Lum-da-diddley-ah. That's what I call a good tune. Give me something lively and bright. Dumty-umpty-iddley-ah. Dum tum—'
'Funny thing—' said Maud, deliberately.
'What's a funny thing?'
'The gentleman in the brown suit whose hands I did this afternoon—'
'He was,' agreed Arthur, brightly. 'A very funny thing.'
Maud frowned. Wit at the expense of Hairy Ainus was one thing—at her own another.
'I was about to say,' she went on precisely, 'that it was a funny thing, a coincidence, seeing that I was already engaged, that the gentleman in the brown suit whose hands I did this afternoon should have asked me to come here, to the White City, with him tonight.'
For a moment they walked on in silence. To Maud it seemed a hopeful silence. Surely it must be the prelude to an outburst.
'Oh!' he said, and stopped.