What an astonishing situation! How he would have scorned a short story with such a situation in it! And he thought of Williams—poor old Williams!—and mentally begged his pardon.
For he understood now that real life was far stranger than fiction. He realised at last that Romance loitered ever around the corner; that Opportunity was always gently nudging one's elbow.
There lay his overcoat on the floor, trailing over her satchel. He looked at it so fixedly that she noticed the direction of his gaze, glanced down, blushed furiously.
"It may seem odd to you that I am travelling with a man's overcoat," she said, "but it will seem[231] odder yet when I tell you that I don't know how I came by it."
"That is odd," he admitted smilingly. "To whom does it belong?"
Her features betrayed the complicated emotions that successively possessed her—perplexity, anxiety, bashfulness.
After a moment she said in a low voice: "You have done so much for me already—you have been so exceedingly nice to me—that I hesitate to ask of you anything more——"
"Please ask!" he urged. "It will be really a happiness for me to serve you."
Surprised at his earnestness and the unembarrassed warmth of his reply, she looked up at him gratefully after a moment.
"Would you," she said, "take charge of that overcoat for me and send it back to its owner?"