"Suppose," he whispered, "you edge your foot a trifle this way—I think I can cut the knot with my penknife—" He glanced about him stealthily. "Shall I try?"
"Not now. Wait until those people go."
"But some of them may live in Harlem."
"I—I can't help it. Do you suppose I'm going to let you lean over before all those people and try to untie our shoes?"
"Do you mean to sit here until they're all gone?" he asked, appalled.
"I do. Terrible as the situation is, we've got to conceal it."
"Even if some of them go to the end of the line?"
"I don't care!" She turned on him with a hint of that pretty fierceness again. "Do you know what you've done? You've affronted and mortified me and humiliated me beyond endurance. I have a guest to dine with me: I shall not arrive before midnight!"
"Do you suppose," he said miserably, "that anything you say can add to my degradation? Can't you imagine how a man must feel who first of all makes a four-footed fool of himself before the most attractive girl he——"