As Sallie started to cross the street someone called “Good-evening.” But that being a familiar method of address, she passed on without a glance.
“I say,” pleaded the voice, “won’t you smile at me again?”
Sallie turned then. Descending from a big yellow car which, had she known more of auto aristocracy, would have stamped itself as of prohibitive peerage, was the man of the aisle seat.
He came nearer.
Sallie turned flutteringly on her heel.
[256]
] “Wait, please,” he begged and his teeth gleamed as they had in the theater. They were nice teeth in a boyish mouth, and upon Sallie they had a disarming effect. In spite of an instinctive impulse to run, she hesitated. The talon scratches inflicted in the chorus dressing-room were still bleeding and the smile of the man who had ceased to be a shadow was balm.
He reached her, lifted his hat.
Sallie shifted uncertainly from one foot to the other.
“Come for a ride, won’t you?” he asked.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” she answered promptly.