"

"No," he said. "He fell softly. Upon a constable, I believe."

She was nearly herself again, and gave a little laugh. "Let us hope he
was a fat one," she said. And then, after a pause: "Who stopped the
horse?"

"Oh, I was lucky enough to do that," he replied with an assumed
jauntiness, wishing he could feel it was an every-day business. "It was
not hard."

"Others appeared to think differently," she replied with a grave
admiration that pleased him.

"Then, madam, they can not have seen you," he smiled. Really, the affair
was being conducted on correct lines.

She mused for a moment, chin in hand.

"... I think," she said presently, "you must be rather an unusual man."
Lionel tried to look as if he disagreed. "Yes, I think so.... And I
suppose I owe you my life.... I wonder what reward...."

It must have been the devil that prompted Lionel to say, "One pound,
three and sevenpence"; but by an effort he choked back the horrible
words, and stammered that he was already repaid.

"No," she demurred, smiling, searching him with her eyes: "that is
hardly fair. I wonder if you would like ..." She glanced round. The
chemist's back was turned: he was groping for some drug upon the
shelves. Lionel was still upon one knee, his face upturned, his eyes
drawn as by a magnet. She leaned toward him; her face came closer and
closer yet, in her eyes a world of gratitude and fun. Her hair almost
brushed his cheek, and he shivered. "I wonder if----" At that moment the
chemist turned, and she finished the sentence persuasively, "--if you
could get me a cab? I dare not trust my horse again to-day."

Lionel rose stiffly.

"Do you prefer," he asked, fixing the unhappy and bewildered chemist
with a glare of anger, "a hansom or a taxi?"

"A taxi, please."

Lionel withdrew. He ordered the coachman, dusty and degraded, to drive
home. The policeman, who had salved the discomfiture of his over-throw
by hectoring the crowd and cuffing the nearest urchins, obligingly blew
his whistle. A minute later a taxi came up.

CHAPTER II

BEHIND THE SCENES

It was one of the great moments in Lionel's life when he handed her into
the prosaic vehicle. From the chemist's shop to the cab was only a few
feet, but for that paltry space the young man felt as a king must feel
when he makes a royal progress abroad. There was no cheering from the
crowd that had gathered, hoping for blood, or at least bandages; but the
whispers ("That's him!