Over his face a deep flush burned—and it was a good face, too—youthfully wilful, perhaps, with a firm, clean-cut chin and pleasant eyes.
“If I were a coward,” he said, “I’d stop this cab and get out. I never faced anything that frightened me half as much as you do!”
She looked him straight in the eyes, one hand twisting at the knob.
“Don’t you suppose that this mistake of mine is as humiliating and unwelcome to me as it is to you?” he said. “If you stop this cab it will ruin somebody’s life. Not mine—if it were my own life, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
Her hand, still clasping the silver knob, suddenly fell limp.
“You say that you are in a hurry?” she asked, with dry lips.
“A desperate hurry,” he replied.
“So am I,” she said, bitterly; “and, thanks to your stupidity, I must make the journey without my brother!”
There was a silence, then she turned towards him again:
“Where do you imagine this cab is going?”