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Page 17
It was a situation which called for the nicest judgment. To allow
the assailant free play with the handle or even to wrestle with him
for its possession entailed the risk that the door might open and
reveal the girl. To bust the young man on the jaw, as promised, on
the other hand, was not in George's eyes a practical policy.
Excellent a deterrent as the threat of such a proceeding might be,
its actual accomplishment was not to be thought of. Gaols yawn and
actions for assault lie in wait for those who go about the place
busting their fellows on the jaw. No. Something swift, something
decided and immediate was indicated, but something that stopped
short of technical battery.
George brought his hand round with a sweep and knocked the stout
young man's silk hat off.
The effect was magical. We all of us have our Achilles heel,
and--paradoxically enough--in the case of the stout young man that
heel was his hat. Superbly built by the only hatter in London who
can construct a silk hat that is a silk hat, and freshly ironed by
loving hands but a brief hour before at the only shaving-parlour in
London where ironing is ironing and not a brutal attack, it was his
pride and joy. To lose it was like losing his trousers. It made him
feel insufficiently clad. With a passionate cry like that of some
wild creature deprived of its young, the erstwhile Berserk released
the handle and sprang in pursuit. At the same moment the traffic
moved on again.
The last George saw was a group scene with the stout young man in
the middle of it. The hat had been popped up into the infield,
where it had been caught by the messenger boy. The stout young man
was bending over it and stroking it with soothing fingers. It was
too far off for anything to be audible, but he seemed to George to
be murmuring words of endearment to it. Then, placing it on his
head, he darted out into the road and George saw him no more. The
audience remained motionless, staring at the spot where the
incident had happened. They would continue to do this till the next
policeman came along and moved them on.
With a pleasant wave of farewell, in case any of them might be
glancing in his direction, George drew in his body and sat down.
The girl in brown had risen from the floor, if she had ever been
there, and was now seated composedly at the further end of the cab.
CHAPTER 4.
"Well, that's that!" said George.
"I'm so much obliged," said the girl.
"It was a pleasure," said George.
He was enabled now to get a closer, more leisurely and much more
satisfactory view of this distressed damsel than had been his good
fortune up to the present. Small details which, when he had first
caught sight of her, distance had hidden from his view, now
presented themselves. Her eyes, he discovered, which he had
supposed brown, were only brown in their general colour-scheme.
They were shot with attractive little flecks of gold, matching
perfectly the little streaks gold which the sun, coming out again
on one of his flying visits and now shining benignantly once more on
the world, revealed in her hair. Her chin was square and
determined, but its resoluteness was contradicted by a dimple and
by the pleasant good-humour of the mouth; and a further softening
of the face was effected by the nose, which seemed to have started
out with the intention of being dignified and aristocratic but had
defeated its purpose by tilting very slightly at the tip. This was
a girl who would take chances, but would take them with a smile and
laugh when she lost.
George was but an amateur physiognomist, but he could read what was
obvious in the faces he encountered; and the more he looked at this
girl, the less he was able to understand the scene which had just
occurred. The thing mystified him completely. For all her
good-humour, there was an air, a manner, a something capable and
defensive, about this girl with which he could not imagine any man
venturing to take liberties. The gold-brown eyes, as they met his
now, were friendly and smiling, but he could imagine them freezing
into a stare baleful enough and haughty enough to quell such a
person as the silk-hatted young man with a single glance. Why,
then, had that super-fatted individual been able to demoralize her
to the extent of flying to the shelter of strange cabs? She was
composed enough now, it was true, but it had been quite plain that
at the moment when she entered the taxi her nerve had momentarily
forsaken her. There were mysteries here, beyond George.
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