"Certainly. By the way, how far is it to the b-basement?"
She turned quite white for an instant, then:
"I think I'd better go and ring up the police."
"No! A thousand times no! I couldn't stand that."
"But the car might--drop before----"
"Better decently dead than publicly paragraphed.... I haven't the least
idea that this thing is going to drop.... Anyway, it's worth it," he
added, rather vaguely.
"Worth--what?" she asked, looking into his rather winning, brown eyes.
"Being here," he said, looking into her engaging gray ones.
After a startling silence she said calmly: "Will you promise me not to
move or shake the car till I return?"
"You won't be very long, will you?"
"Not--very," she replied faintly.
She walked into the library, halted in the center of the room, hands
clasped behind her. Her heart was beating like a trip hammer.
"I might as well face it," she said to herself; "he is--by far--the most
thoroughly attractive man I have ever seen.... I--I _don't_ know what's
the matter," she added piteously.... "if it's that machine William made I
can't help it; I don't care any longer; I wish----"
A sharp crack from the landing sent her out there in a hurry, pale and
frightened.
"Something snapped somewhere," explained the young man with forced
carelessness, "some unimportant splinter gave way and the thing slid down
an inch or two.
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