ituations make people as well as people
situations.

Now was the time for an acquaintance of souls. An almost absolute dark
erased them from each other's sight. Their eyes were as useless as the
useless eyes of fish in subterrene caverns. Miss Webling could have
told Davidge the color of his eyes, of course, being a woman. But
being a man, he could not remember the color of hers, because he had
noted nothing about her eyes except that they were very eye-ish.

He would have blundered ridiculously in describing her appearance. His
information of her character was all to gain. He had seen her
wandering about Washington homeless among the crowds and turned from
every door. She had borne the ordeal as well as could be asked. She
had accepted his proffer of protection with neither terror nor
assurance.

He supposed that in a similar plight the old-fashioned woman--or at
least the ubiquitous woman of the special eternal type that
fictionists call "old-fashioned"--would have been either a bleating,
tremulous gazelle or a brazen siren. But Miss Webling behaved like
neither of these. She took his gallantry with a matter-of-fact
reasonableness, much as a man would accept the offer of another man's
companionship on a tiresome journey. She gave none of those
multitudinous little signals by which a woman indicates that she is
either afraid that a man will try to hug her or afraid that he will
not. She was apparently planning neither to flirt nor to faint.

Davidge asked in a matter-of-fact tone: "Do you think you could walk
to town? The driver says it's only three-fo' miles."

She sighed: "My feet would never make it. And I have on high-heeled
boots."

His "Too bad!" conveyed more sympathy than she expected. He had
another suggestion.

"You could probably get back to the home of Mrs. Widdicombe. That
isn't so far away."

She answered, bluntly, "I shouldn't think of it!"

He made another proposal without much enthusiasm.

"Then I'd better walk in to Washington and get a cab and come back for
you."

She was even blunter about this: "I shouldn't dream of that. You're a
wreck, too."

He lied pluckily, "Oh, I shouldn't mind."

"Well, I should! And I don't fancy the thought of staying here alone
with that driver."

He smiled in the dark at the double-edged compliment of implying that
she was safer with him than with the driver. But she did not hear his
smile.

She apologized, meekly: "I've got you into an awful mess,