“Poetical license,” he explained airily. “Hold on, though.” He fell silent a moment, and out of that silence came a short laugh. “I suppose I am beyond the pale of law, now that I come to think of it. But you needn’t be alarmed, I’m not a really dangerous criminal.”
Later she was to recall that confession with sore misgivings. Now she only inquired lightly:
“Is that why you ran away from the tram car yesterday?”
“Ran away? I didn’t run away,” he said, with dignity. “It just happened that there came into my mind an important engagement that I’d forgotten. My memory isn’t what it should be. So I just turned over the matter in hand to an acquaintance of mine.”
“The matter in hand being me.”
“Why, yes; and the acquaintance being Mr. Cluff. I saw him throw four men out of a hotel once for insulting a girl, so I knew that he was much better at that sort of thing than I. May I go back now and sit down?” “Of course. I don’t know whether I ought to thank you about yesterday or be very angry. It was such an extraordinary performance on your part—”
“Nothing extraordinary about it.” His voice came up out of the shadow, full of judicial confidence. “Merely sound common sense.”
“To leave a woman who has been insulted—”
“In more competent hands than one’s own.”
“Oh, I give it up!” she cried. “I don’t understand you at all. Fitzhugh is right; you haven’t a tradition to your name.”