"Mr. Smith!" she said, flushing slightly.
"'Her eyes,' I quoted, 'were like the stars at even!'"
"You don't mean my eyes, do you?"
I took a puff at my unlighted cigarette. It also smelled like recently mown hay. I felt that I was slipping my cables and heading toward an unknown and tempestuous sea.
"What time are you free, Mildred?" I asked, scarcely recognising my own voice in such reckless apropos.
She shyly informed me.
I struck a match, relighted my cigarette, and took one puff. That was sufficient: I was adrift. I realised it, trembled internally, took another puff.
"If," said I carelessly, "on your way home you should chance to stroll along the path beyond the path that leads to the path which—"
I paused, checked by her bewildered eyes. We both blushed.
"Which way do you usually go home?" I asked, my ears afire.