"That is hours from Twenty-eighth Street, isn't it?"
"I believe so."
The train whirled on; stations were far between, now. He sat so silent, so utterly broken and downcast, that after a long while she turned to him with a hint of softness in her stern reserve.
"Of course," she said, "I do not suppose you deliberately intended to tie our feet together. I am not absurd. But the astonishment, the horror of finding what you had done exasperated me for a moment. I'm cool enough now; besides, it is perfectly plain that you are the sort of man one is—is accustomed to know."
"I hope not!" he said, devoutly.
"Oh, I mean—" She hesitated, and the glimmer of a smile touched her eyes, instantly extinguished, however.
"I understand," he said. "You mean that it's lucky your shoe-laces are tied to the shoe-lace of a man of your own sort. I hope to Heaven you may find a little comfort in that."
"I do," she said, with the uncertain violet light in her eyes again. "It's bad enough, goodness knows, but I—I am very sure you did not mean——"
"You are perfectly right; I mean well, as they say of all chumps. And the worst of it is," he added, wildly, "I never before knew that I was a chump! I never before saw any symptoms. Would you believe me, I never in all my life have been such an idiot as I was in those first few minutes that I crossed your path. How on earth to account for it; how to explain, to ask pardon, to—to ever forget it! As long as I live I shall wake at night with the dreadful chagrin burning my ears off. Isn't it the limit? And I—I shouldn't have felt so crushed if it had been anybody excepting you——"
"I do not understand," she said gravely.