“But that’s just it. I should hate to do it clumsily, ungracefully, grotesquely. I believe certain poisons make you die—quite hideously!” She shivered.
“Nearly all!” he said, teasing her. “But I might mesmerise you—and never wake you up again!”
“You are just as unkind and unsympathetic as the others!” Mrs. Elles exclaimed, pettishly. “Let us go home.”
“Must we?” he said.
“Even if I didn’t want to,” she said, “they want to be rid of us. Look, they are putting out some of the lights!”
“That is nothing. You want to punish me!”
“Oh, no, I am not cross with you. I only am disappointed in you,” she replied, wearily. “You can see me home if you like. I want to walk, it might drive my headache away.”
“I shall be delighted. Besides, as we live in the same house—or block—my way is yours, in a literal sense, at any rate.” He led the way to the door, and got her her umbrella. “I live so near,” he went on, as they turned down Regent Street, “that when the burden of life becomes really too hard to bear, you can send for me to come in and turn you off neatly.”
“I hate that word ‘neatly’!” was all she vouchsafed to reply. He spoke of other things and she answered absently and jerkily. As they drew near Westminster, she said, looking up at him:
“I do wish you would trust me!”