THE BRASS BOWL
shadows, into the mob that surges about the building, and passes from these pages.
II
In the clattering hansom, steadying herself with a hand against the window-frame, to keep from being thrown against the speechless man beside her, the girl waited. And since Maitland in confusion at the moment found no words, from this eloquent silence she drew an inference unjustified, such as lovers are prone to draw, the world over, and one that lent a pathetic color to her thoughts, and chilled a little her mood. She had been too sure. …
But better to have it over with at once, rather than permit it to remain for ever a wall of constraint between them. He must not be permitted to think that she would dream of taking him upon his generous word.
"It was very kind of you," she said in a steady, small voice, "to pretend that we—what you did pretend, in order to save me from being held as a
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