"
He was putting her into the hansom. "Oh! He mustn't, he mustn't." She
was still more frightened by the discovery that he was shaking all over.
Bewildered, shrinking into the far off corner, avoiding his eyes, she yet
saw the quivering of his mouth and made a wild attempt at a smile, which
broke the rigidity of her lips and set her teeth chattering suddenly.
"I am not coming with you," he was saying. "I'll tell the man . . . I
can't. Better not. What is it? Are you cold? Come! What is it? Only
to go to a confounded stuffy room, a hole of an office. Not a quarter of
an hour. I'll come for you--in ten days. Don't think of it too much.
Think of no man, woman or child of all that silly crowd cumbering the
ground. Don't think of me either. Think of yourself. Ha! Nothing will
be able to touch you then--at last. Say nothing. Don't move. I'll have
everything arranged; and as long as you don't hate the sight of me--and
you don't--there's nothing to be frightened about. One of their silly
offices with a couple of ink-slingers of no consequence; poor, scribbling
devils.
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