“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving me a lift with you. I’m for the Bungalow, wherever that is.”
“And I’m for the Farmhouse, and the chaperonage of Mrs. Bond. So it isn’t as terribly compromising as it sounds, is it? Though what in the world Mr. Harmon would think, if this ever got to his ears—”
“It won’t. In any case, Harmon is not a thinker of evil.”
Nevertheless the girl saw trouble in his eyes. Partly it was her innocence, partly the bravado to which the emergency of the day had strung her, which kept that same trouble out of her own eyes. With him it attained speech.
“How old are you?”
Across his shoulder Darcy’s eye caught a number on the paneled side of the car. “Twenty-six,” she lied promptly.
He was taken aback. “Really!” he murmured. “I should have said—aw—much’ younger. Are you sure you appreciate the possible—well—er—misconstructions to which this visit might give rise?”
“I don’t see why it should,” returned Darcy stoutly. “Anyway, I’ve no other place to go.”
“But I could put off my trip.”
“That would be a nuisance to you, wouldn’t it?”