Morris, alert in a second, had crossed the street and joined the group of four intuitively, before he knew it himself. Three young men, whose evening dress told that they were of society, and whose unsteady hold of their own legs, that they had had just a little too much of it, barred the way of a young girl. Tall, slight, and with 183 a mass of blonde hair escaping from the rough shawl she drew closer about her head as she shrank back, there was something showing through her womanly terror that spoke convincingly the gentlewoman. The trio chuckled inanely, making elaborate bows; and the girl shivered as she shrank further into the shadow, and repeated piteously:
“Do, please, let me pass! won’t you?”
“Certainly they will,” Van answered, stepping up on the pavement and taking her in at a glance. “Am I not right, gentlemen?” he added urbanely to the unsteady trio.
“Not by a damned sight!”
“Who the devil are you?” were the prompt and simultaneous rejoinders.
“That doesn’t matter,” Van answered quietly; “but you are obstructing the public streets and frightening this evident stranger.”
“We don’t know any stranger at two o’clock in the morning,” was the illogical rejoinder of the third youth, who clung to the lamp-post.
“What about it, anyway?” said the stoutest of the three, advancing towards Morris. “Do you know her?”
“You evidently do not,” Van replied; then he turned to the girl with the deference he would scarce have used to the leader of his set. “If you will take my arm, I will see you safely to the nearest policeman.”
The girl hesitated and shrunk back a second; then, with that instinctive trust which—fortunately, perhaps—is peculiarly feminine, slipped her red, ungloved little hand into his arm.