On the last steep rise of the hill he lifted her over a slippery pool, and as his hand sank into the soft fur of her wrap, he was conscious of its luxury. It seemed to him that his mustard-colored coat fairly shouted incongruity. His imagination swept on to Raleigh, and the velvet cloak which might do the situation justice. He smiled at himself and smiling, too, at her, felt a tingling sense of coming circumstance.
It was because of that smile, and the candid, boyish quality of it, that she trusted him. “Do you know,” she said, “I haven’t had a thing to eat this morning, and I’m frightfully hungry. Is there any place that I could have a cup of coffee—where you could bring it out to me in the car?”
“Could I?” the morning stars sang. “There’s a corking place in Georgetown.”
“Without the world looking on?”
“Without your world looking on,” boldly.
She hesitated, then told the truth. “I’m running away——”
He was eager. “May I help?”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t if you knew.”
“Try me.”
He helped her into his car, tucked the rug about her, and put up the curtains. “No one can see you on the back seat,” he said, and drove to Georgetown on the wings of the wind.