"What did I get off the car for!" he shouted. "Why, I wouldn't have
missed it for anything. It was immense! It's so confounded seldom," he
went on, "that you find anybody with backbone enough to stick up for a
principle ..."

He heard a brief, deep-throated little laugh and pulled up short with a,
"What's the joke?"

"I laughed," she said, "because you have been deceived." And she added
quickly, "I don't believe it's quite so deep on the sidewalk, is it?"
With that she waded away toward the curb.

He followed, then led the way to a lee-wall that offered, comparatively
speaking, shelter.

Then, "Where's the deception?" he asked.

On any other day, it's probable she'd have acted differently; would have
paid some heed, though a bit contemptuously, perhaps, to the precepts of
ladylike behavior, in which she'd been admirably grounded. The case for
reticence and discretion was a strong one. The night was dark; the
rain-lashed street deserted; the man an utterly casual stranger--why,
she hadn't even had a straight look into his face. His motive in getting
off the car was at least dubitable. Even if not sinister, it could
easily be unpleasantly gallant. A man might not contemplate doing her
bodily harm, and still be capable of trying to collect some sort of
sentimental reward for the ducking he had submitted himself to.

Her instinct rejected all that. The sound of his voice, the
general--atmosphere of him had been exactly right. And then, he'd left