The agreeable surprise of finding the girl's face fully as
attractive as her back had stimulated Jimmy, so that he was keyed
up for the exhibition of swift presence-of-mind. He jumped
forward and caught her arm, and swung her to one side as the cab
rattled past, its driver thinking hard thoughts to himself. The
whole episode was an affair of seconds.

"Thank you," said the girl.

She rubbed the arm which he had seized with rather a rueful
expression. She was a little white, and her breath came quickly.

"I hope I didn't hurt you," said Jimmy.

"You did. Very much. But the taxi would have hurt me more."

She laughed. She looked very attractive when she laughed. She had
a small, piquant, vivacious face. Jimmy, as he looked at it, had
an odd feeling that he had seen her before--when and where he did
not know. That mass of red-gold hair seemed curiously familiar.
Somewhere in the hinterland of his mind there lurked a memory,
but he could not bring it into the open. As for the girl, if she
had ever met him before, she showed no signs of recollecting it.
Jimmy decided that, if he had seen her, it must have been in his
reporter days. She was plainly an American, and he occasionally
had the feeling that he had seen every one in America when he had
worked for the _Chronicle_.

"That's right," he said approvingly. "Always look on the bright
side."