"Are you going to Paddington?" she asked breathlessly.
"Yes, I am," came the answer. The speaker's voice had a slight, well-bred drawl in it, reminiscent of the public school. "Can I do anything for you?"
"You can drive me there, if you will," she replied, with the bluntness of despair. "My taxi's broken down."
The man was out of his own cab in an instant, and held the door open while she paid her fare and ordered her luggage to be transferred. The driver showed no very energetic appreciation of the idea; in fact, he seemed inclined to dispute it, and, at the end of her patience, Nan herself made a grab at her hat-box with the intention of carrying it across to the other taxicab. In the same moment she felt it quietly taken from her and heard the same drawling voice addressing her recalcitrant driver.
"Bring that suit-case across and look sharp about it."
There was a curious quality of authority in the lazy voice to which the taxi-man responded in spite of himself, and he proceeded to obey the order with celerity. A minute later the transference was accomplished and Nan found herself sitting side by side in a taxi with an absolute stranger.
"He was a perfect _beast_ of a driver!" was her first heart-felt ejaculation.
"I'm sure he was--a regular 'down-with-everything' type," he replied.
She stole a veiled glance at him. His face was lean, with a squarish jaw, and the very definitely dark brows and lashes contrasted oddly with his English-fair hair and blue-grey eyes. In one eye he wore a horn-rimmed monocle from which depended a narrow black ribbon.
"I can't thank you enough for coming to my rescue," said Nan, after her quick scrutiny. "It was so frightfully important that I should catch this train."
Somehow the brief question compelled an explanation, although it held no suggestion of curiosity--nothing more than a friendly interest.
"Yes. I have a concert engagement to-morrow, and if I missed this train I couldn't possibly make my connection at Exeter. I change on to the South-Western line there."
"Then I'm very glad I sailed in at the crucial moment. Although you'd have been able to reach your destination in time for the concert even had the worst occurred to-day. You could have travelled down by an earlier train to-morrow; if everything else had failed."