Never had he heard so infectious a note of mirth.
"Oh, what must you think of me?" she ended. "I simply cannot help
laughing, you know--and yet, oh dear!"
She put the tips of the fingers of a hand against her lower lip, gazed
very anxiously up the road, and then again she gave that clear pipe of
laughter.
"I can't help it," she told him imploringly. "I simply cannot help
laughing. It is funny, you know. She was scolding me--"
"_Scolding_!" George exclaimed.
That beauty should be scolded!
"Scolding--yes. Oh, I'm only a--well, scolding me, and I was wishing,
_wishing_ I could escape. And then suddenly out I shot. And then I
look around and she's--" A wave of her hand expressed a disappearance
that was by magic agency.
"But, _scolding_?" George said. "Need you trouble? She will be all
right."
"Oh, I must. I live with her."
"Will she trouble about you?"
"I think she will return for me. Please, _please_ go--would you mind?--
to the corner, and see if there has been an accident."
From that direction a bicyclist approached. George hailed. "Is there a
cab accident round the corner?"
The youth stared; called "Rats!"; passed.
George interpreted: "It means No. Do you think if you were to take my
arm you could walk to the turning?"
Quite naturally she slipped a white glove around his elbow.
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