[CHAPTER III.
A TWISTED SKEIN.]
As though a taxicab, minus its driver and running amuck into a stone wall, was not enough hard luck to throw across the path of Motor Matt, he had also to deal with a young woman masquerading in man’s attire. But for the mishap to the taxicab, Matt would probably never have discovered that the supposed youth was other than “he” seemed.
There were a number of details that perplexed our young friend just then, and among them—and not the least—was the strange disappearance of the driver of the machine. This problem, however, would have to wait. Matt felt that the young woman should claim his first attention.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, feeling more concern on that point than he would have done had his companion been of the other sex.
“No,” answered the girl, her face reddening with mortification.
Matt started to help her up, but she regained her feet without his aid and picked up the tin box and the hat.
“I suppose, Miss Granger,” said he, “that I should have known, from the way those yellow tresses were smoothed upward at the back of your head, that—that you were not what you were trying to appear; but, of course, I wasn’t looking for any such deception as this.”
Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes.
“I—I don’t know what you will think of me,” she murmured. “You see, a man has so much better chance for getting on in the world that I—I have been obliged to play this—this rôle in—in self-defense.”