I was fast approaching a state of infatuation.
"I was so thankful," she continued, "that you prepared me.

It was a horrible experience to see the poor fellow caged like a wild beast, with that dreadful label hanging from his coat; but it would have been overwhelming if I had not known what to expect." As we proceeded, her spirits revived somewhat, a circumstance that she graciously ascribed to the enlivening influence of my society; and I then told her of the mishap that had befallen my colleague.
"What a terrible thing!" she exclaimed, with evidently unaffected concern.

"It is the merest chance that he was not killed on the spot.

Is he much hurt?
And would he mind, do you think, if I called to inquire after him ?" I said that I was sure he would be delighted (being, as a matter of fact, entirely indifferent as to his sentiments on the subject in my delight at the proposal), and when I stepped down from the cab at King's Cross to pursue my way homewards, there already opened out before me the prospect of the renewal of this bitter-sweet and all too dangerous companionship on the morrow..