"It just came to me," said George modestly.

A serious look came into the girl's face. The smile died out of her
eyes. She shivered.

"When I think how some men might have behaved in your place!"

"Oh, no. Any man would have done just what I did. Surely, knocking
off Percy's hat was an act of simple courtesy which anyone would
have performed automatically!"

"You might have been some awful bounder. Or, what would have been
almost worse, a slow-witted idiot who would have stopped to ask
questions before doing anything. To think I should have had the
luck to pick you out of all London!"

"I've been looking on it as a piece of luck--but entirely from my
viewpoint."

She put a small hand on his arm, and spoke earnestly.

"Mr. Bevan, you mustn't think that, because I've been laughing a
good deal and have seemed to treat all this as a joke, you haven't
saved me from real trouble. If you hadn't been there and hadn't
acted with such presence of mind, it would have been terrible!"

"But surely, if that fellow was annoying you, you could have called
a policeman?"