A Bicycle of Cathay
Page 31But if she felt any pique she quickly brushed it out of sight, for, as
I have said before, she was a young woman who had great command of
herself. Of course I said to her that I was very glad to have this
chance of seeing her again, and she answered, with a laugh: "If you really are glad, you ought to thank the Burton girl. This is
one of my favorite walks. The path runs along inside the wall for a
considerable distance and then turns around the little hill over
there, and so leads back to the house. When I happened to look over
the wall and saw you I was truly surprised."
The ground was lower on the outside of the wall than on the inside,
and as I stood and looked almost into the eyes of this girl, as she
the gardener's wife put into my head came into it again. This was a
beautiful face, and the expression upon it was different from
anything I had seen there before. Her surprise had disappeared, her
pique had gone, but a very great interest in the incident of my
passing this spot at the moment of her being there was plainly
evident. As I gazed at her my blood ran warmer through my veins, and
there came upon me a feeling of the olden time--of the days when the
brave cavalier rode up to the spot where, waiting for him, his lady
sat upon her impatient jennet.
She looked wonderingly at me for a moment, and then broke into a
laugh.
"Why on earth do you ask such a question as that? I have a bicycle,
but I am not a very good rider, and I never venture out upon the
public road by myself."
"You shouldn't think of such a thing," said I; and then I stood
silent, and my mind showed me two young people, each mounted, not upon
a swift steed, but upon a far swifter pair of wheels, skimming onward
through the summer air, still rolling on, on, on, through country
trampling of eager hoofs behind them, with never a telegraph wire to
stretch menacingly above them, and so on, on, on, their eyes
sparkling, their hearts beating high with youthful hope.
Again, through the tender mists of the afternoon, I saw them returning
from some secluded Gretna Green to bend their knees and bow their
heads before the lord of the fair bride's home.