"THE WHEELS OF CHANCE; A BICYCLING IDYLL\n\nBy H.G. Wells\n\n\n1896\n\n\n\n\nI. THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTER IN THE STORY\n\nIf you (presuming you are of the sex that does such things)--if you had\ngone into the Drapery Emporium--which is really only magnificent for\nshop--of Messrs. Antrobus & Co.--a perfectly fictitious \"Co.,\" by\nthe bye--of Putney, on the 14th of August, 1895, had turned to the\nright-hand side, where the blocks of white linen and piles of blankets\nrise up to the rail from which the pink and blue prints depend, you\nmight have been served by the central figure of this story that is now\nbeginning. He would have come forward, bowing and swaying, he would have\nextended two hands with largish knuckles and enormous cuffs over the\ncounter, and he would have asked you, protruding a pointed chin and\nwithout the slightest anticipation of pleasure in his manner, what he\nmight have the pleasure of showing you. Under certain circumstances--as,\nfor instance, hats, baby linen, gloves, silks, lace, or curtains--he\nwould simply have bowed politely, and with a drooping expression, and\nmaking a kind of circular sweep, invited you to \"step this way,\"\nand so led you beyond his ken; but under other and happier\nconditions,--huckaback, blankets, dimity, cretonne, linen, calico, are\ncases in point,--he would have requested you to take a seat, emphasising\nthe hospitality by leaning over the counter and gripping a chair back in\na spasmodic manner, and so proceeded to obtain, unfold, and exhibit\nhis goods for your consideration. Under which happier circumstances you\nmight--if of an observing turn of mind and not too much of a housewife\nto be inhuman--have given the central figure of this story less cursory\nattention.\n\nNow if you had noticed anything about him, it would have been chiefly to\nnotice how little he was noticeable. He wore the black morning coat, the\nblack tie, and the speckled grey nether parts (descending into shadow\nand mystery below the counter) of his craft. He was of a pallid\ncomplexion, hair of a kind of dirty fairness, greyish eyes, and a\nskimpy, immature moustache under his peaked indeterminate nose.\nHis features were all small, but none ill-shaped. A rosette of pins\ndecorated the lappel of his coat. His remarks, you would observe, were\nentirely what people used to call cliche, formulae not organic to the\noccasion, but stereotyped ages ago and learnt years since by heart.\n\"This, madam,\" he would say, \"is selling very well.\" \"We are doing a\nvery good article at four three a yard.\" \"We could show you something\nbetter, of course.\" \"No trouble, madam, I assure you.\" Such were the\nsimple counters of his intercourse. So, I say, he would have presented\nhimself to your superficial observation. He would have danced about\nbehind the counter, have neatly refolded the goods he had shown you,\nhave put on one side those you selected, extracted a little book with\na carbon leaf and a tinfoil sheet from a fixture, made you out a little\nbill in that weak flourishing hand peculiar to drapers, and have bawled\n\"Sayn!\" Then a puffy little shop-walker would have come into view,\nlooked at the bill for a second, very hard (showing you a parting\ndown the middle of his head meanwhile), have scribbled a still more\nflourishing J. M. all over the document, have asked you if there\nwas nothing more, have stood by you--supposing that you were paying\ncash--until the central figure of this story reappeared with the change.\nOne glance more at him, and the puffy little shop-walker would have been\nbowing you out, with fountains of civilities at work all about you. And\nso the interview would have terminated.\n\nBut real literature, as distinguished from anecdote, does not concern\nitself with superficial appearances alone. Literature is revelation.\nModern literature is indecorous revelation. It is the duty of the\nearnest author to tell you what you would not have seen--even at the\ncost of some blushes. And the thing that you would not have seen about\nthis young man, and the thing of the greatest moment to this story, the\nthing that must be told if the book is to be written, was--let us face\nit bravely--the Remarkable Condition of this Young Man's Legs.\n\nLet us approach the business with dispassionate explicitness. Let us\nassume something of the scientific spirit, the hard, almost professorial\ntone of the conscientious realist. Let us treat this young man's legs as\na mere diagram, and indicate the points of interest with the unemotional\nprecision of a lecturer's pointer. And so to our revelation. On the\ninternal aspect of the right ankle of this young man you would have\nobserved, ladies and gentlemen, a contusion and an abrasion; on the\ninternal aspect of the left ankle a contusion also; on its external\naspect a large yellowish bruise. On his left shin there were two\nbruises, one a leaden yellow graduating here and there into purple,\nand another, obviously of more recent date, of a blotchy red--tumid and\nthreatening. Proceeding up the left leg in a spiral manner, an unnatural\nhardness and redness would have been discovered on the upper aspect of\nthe calf, and above the knee and on the inner side, an extraordinary\nexpanse of bruised surface, a kind of closely stippled shading of\ncontused points. The right leg would be found to be bruised in a\nmarvellous manner all about and under the knee, and particularly on the\ninterior aspect of the knee. So far we may proceed with our details.\nFired by these discoveries, an investigator might perhaps have pursued\nhis inquiries further--to bruises on the shoulders, elbows, and even the\nfinger joints, of the central figure of our story. He had indeed been\nbumped and battered at an extraordinary number of points. But enough\nof realistic description is as good as a feast, and we have exhibited\nenough for our purpose. Even in literature one must know where to draw\nthe line.\n\nNow the reader may be inclined to wonder how a respectable young shopman\nshould have got his legs, and indeed himself generally, into such a\ndreadful condition. One might fancy that he had been sitting with his\nnether extremities in some complicated machinery, a threshing-machine,\nsay, or one of those hay-making furies. But Sherlock Holmes (now happily\ndead) would have fancied nothing of the kind. He would have recognised\nat once that the bruises on the internal aspect of the left leg,\nconsidered in the light of the distribution of the other abrasions and\ncontusions, pointed unmistakably to the violent impact of the Mounting\nBeginner upon the bicycling saddle, and that the ruinous state of the\nright knee was equally eloquent of the concussions attendant on that\nperson's hasty, frequently causeless, and invariably ill-conceived\ndescents. One large bruise on the shin is even more characteristic of\nthe 'prentice cyclist, for upon every one of them waits the jest of the\nunexpected treadle. You try at least to walk your machine in an easy\nmanner, and whack!--you are rubbing your shin. So out of innocence we\nripen. Two bruises on that place mark a certain want of aptitude in\nlearning, such as one might expect in a person unused to muscular\nexercise. Blisters on the hands are eloquent of the nervous clutch\nof the wavering rider. And so forth, until Sherlock is presently\nexplaining, by the help of the minor injuries, that the machine ridden\nis an old-fashioned affair with a fork instead of the diamond frame, a\ncushioned tire, well worn on the hind wheel, and a gross weight all on\nof perhaps three-and-forty pounds.\n\nThe revelation is made. Behind the decorous figure of the attentive\nshopman that I had the honour of showing you at first, rises a vision\nof a nightly struggle, of two dark figures and a machine in a dark\nroad,--the road, to be explicit, from Roehampton to Putney Hill,--and\nwith this vision is the sound of a heel spurning the gravel, a gasping\nand grunting, a shouting of \"Steer, man, steer!\" a wavering unsteady\nflight, a spasmodic turning of the missile edifice of man and machine,\nand a collapse. Then you descry dimly through the dusk the central\nfigure of this story sitting by the roadside and rubbing his leg at\nsome new place, and his friend, sympathetic (but by no means depressed),\nrepairing the displacement of the handle-bar.\n\nThus even in a shop assistant does the warmth of manhood assert itself,\nand drive him against all the conditions of his calling, against the\ncounsels of prudence and the restrictions of his means, to seek the\nwholesome delights of exertion and danger and pain. And our first\nexamination of the draper reveals beneath his draperies--the man! To\nwhich initial fact (among others) we shall come again in the end.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nBut enough of these revelations. The central figure of our story is now\ngoing along behind the counter, a draper indeed, with your purchases in\nhis arms, to the warehouse, where the various articles you have selected\nwill presently be packed by the senior porter and sent to you. Returning\nthence to his particular place, he lays hands on a folded piece of\ngingham, and gripping the corners of the folds in his hands, begins to\nstraighten them punctiliously. Near him is an apprentice, apprenticed to\nthe same high calling of draper's assistant, a ruddy, red-haired lad\nin a very short tailless black coat and a very high collar, who is\ndeliberately unfolding and refolding some patterns of cretonne. By\ntwenty-one he too may hope to be a full-blown assistant, even as Mr.\nHoopdriver. Prints depend from the brass rails above them, behind are\nfixtures full of white packages containing, as inscriptions testify,\nLino, Hd Bk, and Mull. You might imagine to see them that the two were\nboth intent upon nothing but smoothness of textile and rectitude of\nfold. But to tell the truth, neither is thinking of the mechanical\nduties in hand. The assistant is dreaming of the delicious time--only\nfour hours off now--when he will resume the tale of his bruises and\nabrasions. The apprentice is nearer the long long thoughts of boyhood,\nand his imagination rides cap-a-pie through the chambers of his brain,\nseeking some knightly quest in honour of that Fair Lady, the last but\none of the girl apprentices to the dress-making upstairs. He inclines\nrather to street fighting against revolutionaries--because then she\ncould see him from the window.\n\nJerking them back to the present comes the puffy little shop-walker,\nwith a paper in his hand. The apprentice becomes extremely active. The\nshopwalker eyes the goods in hand. \"Hoopdriver,\" he says, \"how's that\nline of g-sez-x ginghams?\"\n\nHoopdriver returns from an imaginary triumph over the uncertainties of\ndismounting. \"They're going fairly well, sir. But the larger checks seem\nhanging.\"\n\nThe shop-walker brings up parallel to the counter. \"Any particular time\nwhen you want your holidays?\" he asks.\n\nHoopdriver pulls at his skimpy moustache. \"No--Don't want them too late,\nsir, of course.\"\n\n\"How about this day week?\"\n\nHoopdriver becomes rigidly meditative, gripping the corners of the\ngingham folds in his hands. His face is eloquent of conflicting\nconsiderations. Can he learn it in a week? That's the question.\nOtherwise Briggs will get next week, and he will have to wait until\nSeptember--when the weather is often uncertain. He is naturally of a\nsanguine disposition. All drapers have to be, or else they could never\nhave the faith they show in the beauty, washability, and unfading\nexcellence of the goods they sell you. The decision comes at last.\n\"That'll do me very well,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, terminating the pause.\n\nThe die is cast.\n\nThe shop-walker makes a note of it and goes on to Briggs in the\n\"dresses,\" the next in the strict scale of precedence of the Drapery\nEmporium. Mr. Hoopdriver in alternating spasms anon straightens his\ngingham and anon becomes meditative, with his tongue in the hollow of\nhis decaying wisdom tooth.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nAt supper that night, holiday talk held undisputed sway. Mr. Pritchard\nspoke of \"Scotland,\" Miss Isaacs clamoured of Bettws-y-Coed, Mr. Judson\ndisplayed a proprietary interest in the Norfolk Broads. \"I?\" said\nHoopdriver when the question came to him. \"Why, cycling, of course.\"\n\n\"You're never going to ride that dreadful machine of yours, day after\nday?\" said Miss Howe of the Costume Department.\n\n\"I am,\" said Hoopdriver as calmly as possible, pulling at the\ninsufficient moustache. \"I'm going for a Cycling Tour. Along the South\nCoast.\"\n\n\"Well, all I hope, Mr. Hoopdriver, is that you'll get fine weather,\"\nsaid Miss Howe. \"And not come any nasty croppers.\"\n\n\"And done forget some tinscher of arnica in yer bag,\" said the junior\napprentice in the very high collar. (He had witnessed one of the lessons\nat the top of Putney Hill.)\n\n\"You stow it,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, looking hard and threateningly\nat the junior apprentice, and suddenly adding in a tone of bitter\ncontempt,--\"Jampot.\"\n\n\"I'm getting fairly safe upon it now,\" he told Miss Howe.\n\nAt other times Hoopdriver might have further resented the satirical\nefforts of the apprentice, but his mind was too full of the projected\nTour to admit any petty delicacies of dignity. He left the supper table\nearly, so that he might put in a good hour at the desperate gymnastics\nup the Roehampton Road before it would be time to come back for locking\nup. When the gas was turned off for the night he was sitting on the edge\nof his bed, rubbing arnica into his knee--a new and very big place--and\nstudying a Road Map of the South of England. Briggs of the \"dresses,\"\nwho shared the room with him, was sitting up in bed and trying to smoke\nin the dark. Briggs had never been on a cycle in his life, but he felt\nHoopdriver's inexperience and offered such advice as occurred to him.\n\n\"Have the machine thoroughly well oiled,\" said Briggs, \"carry one or\ntwo lemons with you, don't tear yourself to death the first day, and sit\nupright. Never lose control of the machine, and always sound the bell on\nevery possible opportunity. You mind those things, and nothing very much\ncan't happen to you, Hoopdriver--you take my word.\"\n\nHe would lapse into silence for a minute, save perhaps for a curse or so\nat his pipe, and then break out with an entirely different set of tips.\n\n\"Avoid running over dogs, Hoopdriver, whatever you do. It's one of\nthe worst things you can do to run over a dog. Never let the machine\nbuckle--there was a man killed only the other day through his wheel\nbuckling--don't scorch, don't ride on the foot-path, keep your own side\nof the road, and if you see a tramline, go round the corner at once,\nand hurry off into the next county--and always light up before dark. You\nmind just a few little things like that, Hoopdriver, and nothing much\ncan't happen to you--you take my word.\"\n\n\"Right you are!\" said Hoopdriver. \"Good-night, old man.\"\n\n\"Good-night,\" said Briggs, and there was silence for a space, save\nfor the succulent respiration of the pipe. Hoopdriver rode off into\nDreamland on his machine, and was scarcely there before he was pitched\nback into the world of sense again.--Something--what was it?\n\n\"Never oil the steering. It's fatal,\" a voice that came from round\na fitful glow of light, was saying. \"And clean the chain daily with\nblack-lead. You mind just a few little things like that--\"\n\n\"Lord LOVE us!\" said Hoopdriver, and pulled the bedclothes over his\nears.\n\n\n\n\nIV. THE RIDING FORTH OF MR. HOOPDRIVER\n\nOnly those who toil six long days out of the seven, and all the year\nround, save for one brief glorious fortnight or ten days in the summer\ntime, know the exquisite sensations of the First Holiday Morning. All\nthe dreary, uninteresting routine drops from you suddenly, your chains\nfall about your feet. All at once you are Lord of yourself, Lord of\nevery hour in the long, vacant day; you may go where you please, call\nnone Sir or Madame, have a lappel free of pins, doff your black morning\ncoat, and wear the colour of your heart, and be a Man. You grudge sleep,\nyou grudge eating, and drinking even, their intrusion on those exquisite\nmoments. There will be no more rising before breakfast in casual\nold clothing, to go dusting and getting ready in a cheerless,\nshutter-darkened, wrappered-up shop, no more imperious cries of,\n\"Forward, Hoopdriver,\" no more hasty meals, and weary attendance on\nfitful old women, for ten blessed days. The first morning is by far\nthe most glorious, for you hold your whole fortune in your hands.\nThereafter, every night, comes a pang, a spectre, that will not be\nexorcised--the premonition of the return. The shadow of going back, of\nbeing put in the cage again for another twelve months, lies blacker and\nblacker across the sunlight. But on the first morning of the ten the\nholiday has no past, and ten days seems as good as infinity.\n\nAnd it was fine, full of a promise of glorious days, a deep blue sky\nwith dazzling piles of white cloud here and there, as though celestial\nhaymakers had been piling the swathes of last night's clouds into cocks\nfor a coming cartage. There were thrushes in the Richmond Road, and a\nlark on Putney Heath. The freshness of dew was in the air; dew or\nthe relics of an overnight shower glittered on the leaves and grass.\nHoopdriver had breakfasted early by Mrs. Gunn's complaisance. He wheeled\nhis machine up Putney Hill, and his heart sang within him. Halfway up, a\ndissipated-looking black cat rushed home across the road and vanished\nunder a gate. All the big red-brick houses behind the variegated shrubs\nand trees had their blinds down still, and he would not have changed\nplaces with a soul in any one of them for a hundred pounds.\n\nHe had on his new brown cycling suit--a handsome Norfolk jacket thing\nfor 30/(sp.)--and his legs--those martyr legs--were more than consoled\nby thick chequered stockings, \"thin in the foot, thick in the leg,\" for\nall they had endured. A neat packet of American cloth behind the saddle\ncontained his change of raiment, and the bell and the handle-bar and the\nhubs and lamp, albeit a trifle freckled by wear, glittered blindingly\nin the rising sunlight. And at the top of the hill, after only\none unsuccessful attempt, which, somehow, terminated on the green,\nHoopdriver mounted, and with a stately and cautious restraint in his\npace, and a dignified curvature of path, began his great Cycling Tour\nalong the Southern Coast.\n\nThere is only one phrase to describe his course at this stage, and that\nis--voluptuous curves. He did not ride fast, he did not ride straight,\nan exacting critic might say he did not ride well--but he rode\ngenerously, opulently, using the whole road and even nibbling at the\nfootpath. The excitement never flagged. So far he had never passed or\nbeen passed by anything, but as yet the day was young and the road was\nclear. He doubted his steering so much that, for the present, he had\nresolved to dismount at the approach of anything else upon wheels. The\nshadows of the trees lay very long and blue across the road, the morning\nsunlight was like amber fire.\n\nAt the cross-roads at the top of West Hill, where the cattle trough\nstands, he turned towards Kingston and set himself to scale the little\nbit of ascent. An early heath-keeper, in his velveteen jacket, marvelled\nat his efforts. And while he yet struggled, the head of a carter rose\nover the brow.\n\nAt the sight of him Mr. Hoopdriver, according to his previous\ndetermination, resolved to dismount. He tightened the brake, and the\nmachine stopped dead. He was trying to think what he did with his right\nleg whilst getting off. He gripped the handles and released the brake,\nstanding on the left pedal and waving his right foot in the air.\nThen--these things take so long in the telling--he found the machine was\nfalling over to the right. While he was deciding upon a plan of action,\ngravitation appears to have been busy. He was still irresolute when he\nfound the machine on the ground, himself kneeling upon it, and a vague\nfeeling in his mind that again Providence had dealt harshly with his\nshin. This happened when he was just level with the heathkeeper. The man\nin the approaching cart stood up to see the ruins better.\n\n\"THAT ain't the way to get off,\" said the heathkeeper.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver picked up the machine. The handle was twisted askew again\nHe said something under his breath. He would have to unscrew the beastly\nthing.\n\n\"THAT ain't the way to get off,\" repeated the heathkeeper, after a\nsilence.\n\n\"_I_ know that,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, testily, determined to overlook\nthe new specimen on his shin at any cost. He unbuckled the wallet behind\nthe saddle, to get out a screw hammer.\n\n\"If you know it ain't the way to get off--whaddyer do it for?\" said the\nheath-keeper, in a tone of friendly controversy.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver got out his screw hammer and went to the handle. He was\nannoyed. \"That's my business, I suppose,\" he said, fumbling with the\nscrew. The unusual exertion had made his hands shake frightfully.\n\nThe heath-keeper became meditative, and twisted his stick in his\nhands behind his back. \"You've broken yer 'andle, ain't yer?\" he\nsaid presently. Just then the screw hammer slipped off the nut. Mr.\nHoopdriver used a nasty, low word.\n\n\"They're trying things, them bicycles,\" said the heath-keeper,\ncharitably. \"Very trying.\" Mr. Hoopdriver gave the nut a vicious turn\nand suddenly stood up--he was holding the front wheel between his knees.\n\"I wish,\" said he, with a catch in his voice, \"I wish you'd leave off\nstaring at me.\"\n\nThen with the air of one who has delivered an ultimatum, he began\nreplacing the screw hammer in the wallet.\n\nThe heath-keeper never moved. Possibly he raised his eyebrows,\nand certainly he stared harder than he did before. \"You're pretty\nunsociable,\" he said slowly, as Mr. Hoopdriver seized the handles and\nstood ready to mount as soon as the cart had passed.\n\nThe indignation gathered slowly but surely. \"Why don't you ride on a\nprivate road of your own if no one ain't to speak to you?\" asked the\nheath-keeper, perceiving more and more clearly the bearing of the\nmatter. \"Can't no one make a passin' remark to you, Touchy? Ain't I good\nenough to speak to you? Been struck wooden all of a sudden?\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver stared into the Immensity of the Future. He was rigid\nwith emotion. It was like abusing the Lions in Trafalgar Square. But the\nheathkeeper felt his honour was at stake.\n\n\"Don't you make no remarks to 'IM,\" said the keeper as the carter came\nup broadside to them. \"'E's a bloomin' dook, 'e is. 'E don't converse\nwith no one under a earl. 'E's off to Windsor, 'e is; that's why 'e's\nstickin' his be'ind out so haughty. Pride! Why, 'e's got so much of it,\n'e has to carry some of it in that there bundle there, for fear 'e'd\nbust if 'e didn't ease hisself a bit--'E--\"\n\nBut Mr. Hoopdriver heard no more. He was hopping vigorously along the\nroad, in a spasmodic attempt to remount. He missed the treadle once and\nswore viciously, to the keeper's immense delight. \"Nar! Nar!\" said the\nheath-keeper.\n\nIn another moment Mr. Hoopdriver was up, and after one terrific lurch\nof the machine, the heathkeeper dropped out of earshot. Mr. Hoopdriver\nwould have liked to look back at his enemy, but he usually twisted round\nand upset if he tried that. He had to imagine the indignant heath-keeper\ntelling the carter all about it. He tried to infuse as much disdain\naspossible into his retreating aspect.\n\nHe drove on his sinuous way down the dip by the new mere and up the\nlittle rise to the crest of the hill that drops into Kingston Vale;\nand so remarkable is the psychology of cycling, that he rode all the\nstraighter and easier because the emotions the heathkeeper had aroused\nrelieved his mind of the constant expectation of collapse that had\npreviously unnerved him. To ride a bicycle properly is very like a love\naffair--chiefly it is a matter of faith. Believe you do it, and the\nthing is done; doubt, and, for the life of you, you cannot.\n\nNow you may perhaps imagine that as he rode on, his feelings towards the\nheath-keeper were either vindictive or remorseful,--vindictive for the\naggravation or remorseful for his own injudicious display of ill\ntemper. As a matter of fact, they were nothing of the sort. A sudden,\na wonderful gratitude, possessed him. The Glory of the Holidays had\nresumed its sway with a sudden accession of splendour. At the crest of\nthe hill he put his feet upon the footrests, and now riding moderately\nstraight, went, with a palpitating brake, down that excellent descent.\nA new delight was in his eyes, quite over and above the pleasure of\nrushing through the keen, sweet, morning air. He reached out his thumb\nand twanged his bell out of sheer happiness.\n\n\"'He's a bloomin' Dook--he is!'\" said Mr. Hoopdriver to himself, in a\nsoft undertone, as he went soaring down the hill, and again, \"'He's a\nbloomin' Dook!\"' He opened his mouth in a silent laugh. It was having a\ndecent cut did it. His social superiority had been so evident that even\na man like that noticed it. No more Manchester Department for ten days!\nOut of Manchester, a Man. The draper Hoopdriver, the Hand, had vanished\nfrom existence. Instead was a gentleman, a man of pleasure, with a\nfive-pound note, two sovereigns, and some silver at various convenient\npoints of his person. At any rate as good as a Dook, if not precisely\nin the peerage. Involuntarily at the thought of his funds Hoopdriver's\nright hand left the handle and sought his breast pocket, to be\nimmediately recalled by a violent swoop of the machine towards the\ncemetery. Whirroo! Just missed that half-brick! Mischievous brutes there\nwere in the world to put such a thing in the road. Some blooming 'Arry\nor other! Ought to prosecute a few of these roughs, and the rest would\nknow better. That must be the buckle of the wallet was rattling on the\nmud-guard. How cheerfully the wheels buzzed!\n\nThe cemetery was very silent and peaceful, but the Vale was waking, and\nwindows rattled and squeaked up, and a white dog came out of one of the\nhouses and yelped at him. He got off, rather breathless, at the foot of\nKingston Hill, and pushed up. Halfway up, an early milk chariot rattled\nby him; two dirty men with bundles came hurrying down. Hoopdriver felt\nsure they were burglars, carrying home the swag.\n\nIt was up Kingston Hill that he first noticed a peculiar feeling, a\nslight tightness at his knees; but he noticed, too, at the top that\nhe rode straighter than he did before. The pleasure of riding straight\nblotted out these first intimations of fatigue. A man on horseback\nappeared; Hoopdriver, in a tumult of soul at his own temerity, passed\nhim. Then down the hill into Kingston, with the screw hammer, behind\nin the wallet, rattling against the oil can. He passed, without\nmisadventure, a fruiterer's van and a sluggish cartload of bricks. And\nin Kingston Hoopdriver, with the most exquisite sensations, saw the\nshutters half removed from a draper's shop, and two yawning youths,\nin dusty old black jackets and with dirty white comforters about their\nnecks, clearing up the planks and boxes and wrappers in the window,\npreparatory to dressing it out. Even so had Hoopdriver been on the\nprevious day. But now, was he not a bloomin' Dook, palpably in the\nsight of common men? Then round the corner to the right--bell banged\nfuriously--and so along the road to Surbiton.\n\nWhoop for Freedom and Adventure! Every now and then a house with an\nexpression of sleepy surprise would open its eye as he passed, and\nto the right of him for a mile or so the weltering Thames flashed and\nglittered. Talk of your joie de vivre. Albeit with a certain cramping\nsensation about the knees and calves slowly forcing itself upon his\nattention.\n\n\n\n\nV. THE SHAMEFUL EPISODE OF THE YOUNG LADY IN GREY\n\nNow you must understand that Mr. Hoopdriver was not one of your fast\nyoung men. If he had been King Lemuel, he could not have profited more\nby his mother's instructions. He regarded the feminine sex as something\nto bow to and smirk at from a safe distance. Years of the intimate\nremoteness of a counter leave their mark upon a man. It was an adventure\nfor him to take one of the Young Ladies of the establishment to church\non a Sunday. Few modern young men could have merited less the epithet\n\"Dorg.\" But I have thought at times that his machine may have had\nsomething of the blade in its metal. Decidedly it was a machine with a\npast. Mr. Hoopdriver had bought it second-hand from Hare's in Putney,\nand Hare said it had had several owners. Second-hand was scarcely the\nword for it, and Hare was mildly puzzled that he should be selling such\nan antiquity. He said it was perfectly sound, if a little old-fashioned,\nbut he was absolutely silent about its moral character. It may even have\nbegun its career with a poet, say, in his glorious youth. It may have\nbeen the bicycle of a Really Bad Man. No one who has ever ridden a cycle\nof any kind but will witness that the things are unaccountably prone to\npick up bad habits--and keep them.\n\nIt is undeniable that it became convulsed with the most violent emotions\ndirectly the Young Lady in Grey appeared. It began an absolutely\nunprecedented Wabble--unprecedented so far as Hoopdriver's experience\nwent. It \"showed off\"--the most decadent sinuosity. It left a track like\none of Beardsley's feathers. He suddenly realised, too, that his cap was\nloose on his head and his breath a mere remnant.\n\nThe Young Lady in Grey was also riding a bicycle. She was dressed in a\nbeautiful bluish-gray, and the sun behind her drew her outline in gold\nand left the rest in shadow. Hoopdriver was dimly aware that she was\nyoung, rather slender, dark, and with a bright colour and bright eyes.\nStrange doubts possessed him as to the nature of her nether costume.\nHe had heard of such things of course. French, perhaps. Her handles\nglittered; a jet of sunlight splashed off her bell blindingly. She was\napproaching the high road along an affluent from the villas of Surbiton.\nfee roads converged slantingly. She was travelling at about the same\npace as Mr. Hoopdriver. The appearances pointed to a meeting at the fork\nof the roads.\n\nHoopdriver was seized with a horrible conflict of doubts. By contrast\nwith her he rode disgracefully. Had he not better get off at once\nand pretend something was wrong with his treadle? Yet even the end of\ngetting off was an uncertainty. That last occasion on Putney Heath! On\nthe other hand, what would happen if he kept on? To go very slow\nseemed the abnegation of his manhood. To crawl after a mere schoolgirl!\nBesides, she was not riding very fast. On the other hand, to thrust\nhimself in front of her, consuming the road in his tendril-like advance,\nseemed an incivility--greed. He would leave her such a very little.\nHis business training made him prone to bow and step aside. If only one\ncould take one's hands off the handles, one might pass with a silent\nelevation of the hat, of course. But even that was a little suggestive\nof a funeral.\n\nMeanwhile the roads converged. She was looking at him. She was flushed,\na little thin, and had very bright eyes. Her red lips fell apart. She\nmay have been riding hard, but it looked uncommonly like a faint smile.\nAnd the things were--yes!--RATIONALS! Suddenly an impulse to bolt from\nthe situation became clamorous. Mr. Hoopdriver pedalled convulsively,\nintending to pass her. He jerked against some tin thing on the road, and\nit flew up between front wheel and mud-guard. He twisted round towards\nher. Had the machine a devil?\n\nAt that supreme moment it came across him that he would have done wiser\nto dismount. He gave a frantic 'whoop' and tried to get round, then, as\nhe seemed falling over, he pulled the handles straight again and to the\nleft by an instinctive motion, and shot behind her hind wheel, missing\nher by a hair's breadth. The pavement kerb awaited him. He tried to\nrecover, and found himself jumped up on the pavement and riding squarely\nat a neat wooden paling. He struck this with a terrific impact and shot\nforward off his saddle into a clumsy entanglement. Then he began to\ntumble over sideways, and completed the entire figure in a sitting\nposition on the gravel, with his feet between the fork and the stay of\nthe machine. The concussion on the gravel shook his entire being. He\nremained in that position, wishing that he had broken his neck, wishing\neven more heartily that he had never been born. The glory of life had\ndeparted. Bloomin' Dook, indeed! These unwomanly women!\n\nThere was a soft whirr, the click of a brake, two footfalls, and the\nYoung Lady in Grey stood holding her machine. She had turned round and\ncome back to him. The warm sunlight now was in her face. \"Are you hurt?\"\nshe said. She had a pretty, clear, girlish voice. She was really very\nyoung--quite a girl, in fact. And rode so well! It was a bitter draught.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver stood up at once. \"Not a bit,\" he said, a little\nruefully. He became painfully aware that large patches of gravel\nscarcely improve the appearance of a Norfolk suit. \"I'm very sorry\nindeed--\"\n\n\"It's my fault,\" she said, interrupting and so saving him on the very\nverge of calling her 'Miss.' (He knew 'Miss' was wrong, but it was\ndeep-seated habit with him.) \"I tried to pass you on the wrong side.\"\nHer face and eyes seemed all alive. \"It's my place to be sorry.\"\n\n\"But it was my steering--\"\n\n\"I ought to have seen you were a Novice\"--with a touch of superiority.\n\"But you rode so straight coming along there!\"\n\nShe really was--dashed pretty. Mr. Hoopdriver's feelings passed the\nnadir. When he spoke again there was the faintest flavour of the\naristocratic in his voice.\n\n\"It's my first ride, as a matter of fact. But that's no excuse for my\nah! blundering--\"\n\n\"Your finger's bleeding,\" she said, abruptly.\n\nHe saw his knuckle was barked. \"I didn't feel it,\" he said, feeling\nmanly.\n\n\"You don't at first. Have you any sticking-plaster? If not--\" She\nbalanced her machine against herself. She had a little side pocket,\nand she whipped out a small packet of sticking-plaster with a pair of\nscissors in a sheath at the side, and cut off a generous portion. He\nhad a wild impulse to ask her to stick it on for him. Controlled. \"Thank\nyou,\" he said.\n\n\"Machine all right?\" she asked, looking past him at the prostrate\nvehicle, her hands on her handle-bar. For the first time Hoopdriver did\nnot feel proud of his machine.\n\nHe turned and began to pick up the fallen fabric. He looked over his\nshoulder, and she was gone, turned his head over the other shoulder down\nthe road, and she was riding off. \"ORF!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"Well,\nI'm blowed!--Talk about Slap Up!\" (His aristocratic refinement rarely\nadorned his speech in his private soliloquies.) His mind was whirling.\nOne fact was clear. A most delightful and novel human being had flashed\nacross his horizon and was going out of his life again. The Holiday\nmadness was in his blood. She looked round!\n\nAt that he rushed his machine into the road, and began a hasty ascent.\nUnsuccessful. Try again. Confound it, will he NEVER be able to get up\non the thing again? She will be round the corner in a minute. Once more.\nAh! Pedal! Wabble! No! Right this time! He gripped the handles and put\nhis head down. He would overtake her.\n\nThe situation was primordial. The Man beneath prevailed for a moment\nover the civilised superstructure, the Draper. He pushed at the pedals\nwith archaic violence. So Palaeolithic man may have ridden his simple\nbicycle of chipped flint in pursuit of his exogamous affinity. She\nvanished round the corner. His effort was Titanic. What should he say\nwhen he overtook her? That scarcely disturbed him at first. How fine\nshe had looked, flushed with the exertion of riding, breathing a little\nfast, but elastic and active! Talk about your ladylike, homekeeping\ngirls with complexions like cold veal! But what should he say to her?\nThat was a bother. And he could not lift his cap without risking a\nrepetition of his previous ignominy. She was a real Young Lady. No\nmistake about that! None of your blooming shop girls. (There is no\ngreater contempt in the world than that of shop men for shop girls,\nunless it be that of shop girls for shop men.) Phew! This was work. A\ncertain numbness came and went at his knees.\n\n\"May I ask to whom I am indebted?\" he panted to himself, trying it over.\nThat might do. Lucky he had a card case! A hundred a shilling--while\nyou wait. He was getting winded. The road was certainly a bit uphill.\nHe turned the corner and saw a long stretch of road, and a grey dress\nvanishing. He set his teeth. Had he gained on her at all? \"Monkey on\na gridiron!\" yelped a small boy. Hoopdriver redoubled his efforts. His\nbreath became audible, his steering unsteady, his pedalling positively\nferocious. A drop of perspiration ran into his eye, irritant as acid.\nThe road really was uphill beyond dispute. All his physiology began to\ncry out at him. A last tremendous effort brought him to the corner and\nshowed yet another extent of shady roadway, empty save for a baker's\nvan. His front wheel suddenly shrieked aloud. \"Oh Lord!\" said\nHoopdriver, relaxing.\n\nAnyhow she was not in sight. He got off unsteadily, and for a moment\nhis legs felt like wisps of cotton. He balanced his machine against the\ngrassy edge of the path and sat down panting. His hands were gnarled\nwith swollen veins and shaking palpably, his breath came viscid.\n\n\"I'm hardly in training yet,\" he remarked. His legs had gone leaden.\n\"I don't feel as though I'd had a mouthful of breakfast.\" Presently he\nslapped his side pocket and produced therefrom a brand-new cigarette\ncase and a packet of Vansittart's Red Herring cigarettes. He filled\nthe case. Then his eye fell with a sudden approval on the ornamental\nchequering of his new stockings. The expression in his eyes faded slowly\nto abstract meditation.\n\n\"She WAS a stunning girl,\" he said. \"I wonder if I shall ever set eyes\non her again. And she knew how to ride, too! Wonder what she thought of\nme.\"\n\nThe phrase 'bloomin' Dook' floated into his mind with a certain flavour\nof comfort.\n\nHe lit a cigarette, and sat smoking and meditating. He did not even look\nup when vehicles passed. It was perhaps ten minutes before he roused\nhimself. \"What rot it is! What's the good of thinking such things,\" he\nsaid. \"I'm only a blessed draper's assistant.\" (To be exact, he did not\nsay blessed. The service of a shop may polish a man's exterior ways, but\nthe 'prentices' dormitory is an indifferent school for either manners\nor morals.) He stood up and began wheeling his machine towards Esher. It\nwas going to be a beautiful day, and the hedges and trees and the open\ncountry were all glorious to his town-tired eyes. But it was a little\ndifferent from the elation of his start.\n\n\"Look at the gentleman wizzer bicitle,\" said a nursemaid on the path\nto a personage in a perambulator. That healed him a little. \"'Gentleman\nwizzer bicitle,'--'bloomin' Dook'--I can't look so very seedy,\" he said\nto himself.\n\n\"I WONDER--I should just like to know--\"\n\nThere was something very comforting in the track of HER pneumatic\nrunning straight and steady along the road before him. It must be hers.\nNo other pneumatic had been along the road that morning. It was just\npossible, of course, that he might see her once more--coming back.\nShould he try and say something smart? He speculated what manner of girl\nshe might be. Probably she was one of these here New Women. He had a\npersuasion the cult had been maligned. Anyhow she was a Lady. And rich\npeople, too! Her machine couldn't have cost much under twenty pounds.\nHis mind came round and dwelt some time on her visible self. Rational\ndress didn't look a bit unwomanly. However, he disdained to be one of\nyour fortune-hunters. Then his thoughts drove off at a tangent. He would\ncertainly have to get something to eat at the next public house.\n\n\n\n\nVI. ON THE ROAD TO RIPLEY\n\nIn the fulness of time, Mr. Hoopdriver drew near the Marquis of Granby\nat Esher, and as he came under the railway arch and saw the inn in front\nof him, he mounted his machine again and rode bravely up to the doorway.\nBurton and biscuit and cheese he had, which, indeed, is Burton in its\nproper company; and as he was eating there came a middleaged man in a\ndrab cycling suit, very red and moist and angry in the face, and asked\nbitterly for a lemon squash. And he sat down upon the seat in the bar\nand mopped his face. But scarcely had he sat down before he got up again\nand stared out of the doorway.\n\n\"Damn!\" said he. Then, \"Damned Fool!\"\n\n\"Eigh?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, looking round suddenly with a piece of\ncheese in his cheek.\n\nThe man in drab faced him. \"I called myself a Damned Fool, sir. Have you\nany objections?\"\n\n\"Oh!--None. None,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"I thought you spoke to me. I\ndidn't hear what you said.\"\n\n\"To have a contemplative disposition and an energetic temperament, sir,\nis hell. Hell, I tell you. A contemplative disposition and a phlegmatic\ntemperament, all very well. But energy and philosophy--!\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver looked as intelligent as he could, but said nothing.\n\n\"There's no hurry, sir, none whatever. I came out for exercise, gentle\nexercise, and to notice the scenery and to botanise. And no sooner do\nI get on the accursed machine, than off I go hammer and tongs; I never\nlook to right or left, never notice a flower, never see a view, get hot,\njuicy, red,--like a grilled chop. Here I am, sir. Come from Guildford in\nsomething under the hour. WHY, sir?\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver shook his head.\n\n\"Because I'm a damned fool, sir. Because I've reservoirs and reservoirs\nof muscular energy, and one or other of them is always leaking. It's\na most interesting road, birds and trees, I've no doubt, and wayside\nflowers, and there's nothing I should enjoy more than watching them. But\nI can't. Get me on that machine, and I have to go. Get me on anything,\nand I have to go. And I don't want to go a bit. WHY should a man rush\nabout like a rocket, all pace and fizzle? Why? It makes me furious. I\ncan assure you, sir, I go scorching along the road, and cursing aloud at\nmyself for doing it. A quiet, dignified, philosophical man, that's what\nI am--at bottom; and here I am dancing with rage and swearing like a\ndrunken tinker at a perfect stranger--\n\n\"But my day's wasted. I've lost all that country road, and now I'm on\nthe fringe of London. And I might have loitered all the morning! Ugh!\nThank Heaven, sir, you have not the irritable temperament, that you\nare not goaded to madness by your endogenous sneers, by the eternal\nwrangling of an uncomfortable soul and body. I tell you, I lead a cat\nand dog life--But what IS the use of talking?--It's all of a piece!\"\n\nHe tossed his head with unspeakable self-disgust, pitched the lemon\nsquash into his mouth, paid for it, and without any further remark\nstrode to the door. Mr. Hoopdriver was still wondering what to say when\nhis interlocutor vanished. There was a noise of a foot spurning the\ngravel, and when Mr. Hoopdriver reached the doorway, the man in drab was\na score of yards Londonward. He had already gathered pace. He pedalled\nwith ill-suppressed anger, and his head was going down. In another\nmoment he flew swiftly out of sight under the railway arch, and Mr.\nHoopdriver saw him no more.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nAfter this whirlwind Mr. Hoopdriver paid his reckoning and--being now\na little rested about the muscles of the knees--resumed his saddle and\nrode on in the direction of Ripley, along an excellent but undulating\nroad. He was pleased to find his command over his machine already\nsensibly increased. He set himself little exercises as he went along and\nperformed them with variable success. There was, for instance, steering\nin between a couple of stones, say a foot apart, a deed of little\ndifficulty as far as the front wheel is concerned. But the back wheel,\nnot being under the sway of the human eye, is apt to take a vicious jump\nover the obstacle, which sends a violent concussion all along the spine\nto the skull, and will even jerk a loosely fastened hat over the eyes,\nand so lead to much confusion. And again, there was taking the hand or\nhands off the handlebar, a thing simple in itself, but complex in its\nconsequences. This particularly was a feat Mr. Hoopdriver desired to\ndo, for several divergent reasons; but at present it simply led to\nconvulsive balancings and novel and inelegant modes of dismounting.\n\nThe human nose is, at its best, a needless excrescence. There are those\nwho consider it ornamental, and would regard a face deprived of its\nassistance with pity or derision; but it is doubtful whether our\nesteem is dictated so much by a sense of its absolute beauty as by the\nvitiating effect of a universally prevalent fashion. In the case of\nbicycle students, as in the young of both sexes, its inutility is\naggravated by its persistent annoyance--it requires constant attention.\nUntil one can ride with one hand, and search for, secure, and use a\npocket handkerchief with the other, cycling is necessarily a constant\nseries of descents. Nothing can be further from the author's ambition\nthan a wanton realism, but Mr. Hoopdriver's nose is a plain and salient\nfact, and face it we must. And, in addition to this inconvenience, there\nare flies. Until the cyclist can steer with one hand, his face is\ngiven over to Beelzebub. Contemplative flies stroll over it, and trifle\nabsently with its most sensitive surfaces. The only way to dislodge them\nis to shake the head forcibly and to writhe one's features violently.\nThis is not only a lengthy and frequently ineffectual method, but one\nexceedingly terrifying to foot passengers. And again, sometimes the\nbeginner rides for a space with one eye closed by perspiration, giving\nhim a waggish air foreign to his mood and ill calculated to overawe\nthe impertinent. However, you will appreciate now the motive of Mr.\nHoopdriver's experiments. He presently attained sufficient dexterity\nto slap himself smartly and violently in the face with his right hand,\nwithout certainly overturning the machine; but his pocket handkerchief\nmight have been in California for any good it was to him while he was in\nthe saddle.\n\nYet you must not think that because Mr. Hoopdriver was a little\nuncomfortable, he was unhappy in the slightest degree. In the background\nof his consciousness was the sense that about this time Briggs would be\nhalf-way through his window dressing, and Gosling, the apprentice, busy,\nwith a chair turned down over the counter and his ears very red, trying\nto roll a piece of huckaback--only those who have rolled pieces of\nhuckaback know quite how detestable huckaback is to roll--and the shop\nwould be dusty and, perhaps, the governor about and snappy. And here was\nquiet and greenery, and one mucked about as the desire took one,\nwithout a soul to see, and here was no wailing of \"Sayn,\" no folding of\nremnants, no voice to shout, \"Hoopdriver, forward!\" And once he almost\nran over something wonderful, a little, low, red beast with a yellowish\ntail, that went rushing across the road before him. It was the first\nweasel he had ever seen in his cockney life. There were miles of this,\nscores of miles of this before him, pinewood and oak forest, purple,\nheathery moorland and grassy down, lush meadows, where shining rivers\nwound their lazy way, villages with square-towered, flint churches,\nand rambling, cheap, and hearty inns, clean, white, country towns, long\ndownhill stretches, where one might ride at one's ease (overlooking a\njolt or so), and far away, at the end of it all,--the sea.\n\nWhat mattered a fly or so in the dawn of these delights? Perhaps he had\nbeen dashed a minute by the shameful episode of the Young Lady in Grey,\nand perhaps the memory of it was making itself a little lair in a corner\nof his brain from which it could distress him in the retrospect by\nsuggesting that he looked like a fool; but for the present that trouble\nwas altogether in abeyance. The man in drab--evidently a swell--had\nspoken to him as his equal, and the knees of his brown suit and the\nchequered stockings were ever before his eyes. (Or, rather, you could\nsee the stockings by carrying the head a little to one side.) And to\nfeel, little by little, his mastery over this delightful, treacherous\nmachine, growing and growing! Every half-mile or so his knees reasserted\nthemselves, and he dismounted and sat awhile by the roadside.\n\nIt was at a charming little place between Esher and Cobham, where a\nbridge crosses a stream, that Mr. Hoopdriver came across the other\ncyclist in brown. It is well to notice the fact here, although the\ninterview was of the slightest, because it happened that subsequently\nHoopdriver saw a great deal more of this other man in brown. The other\ncyclist in brown had a machine of dazzling newness, and a punctured\npneumatic lay across his knees. He was a man of thirty or more, with a\nwhitish face, an aquiline nose, a lank, flaxen moustache, and very fair\nhair, and he scowled at the job before him. At the sight of him Mr.\nHoopdriver pulled himself together, and rode by with the air of one born\nto the wheel. \"A splendid morning,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, \"and a fine\nsurface.\"\n\n\"The morning and you and the surface be everlastingly damned!\" said the\nother man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble\nand did not distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of\nhaving duly asserted the wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together,\nof having behaved himself as becomes one of the brotherhood of the\nwheel. The other man in brown watched his receding aspect. \"Greasy\nproletarian,\" said the other man in brown, feeling a prophetic dislike.\n\"Got a suit of brown, the very picture of this. One would think his sole\naim in life had been to caricature me. It's Fortune's way with me. Look\nat his insteps on the treadles! Why does Heaven make such men?\"\n\nAnd having lit a cigarette, the other man in brown returned to the\nbusiness in hand.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver worked up the hill towards Cobham to a point that he felt\nsure was out of sight of the other man in brown, and then he dismounted\nand pushed his machine; until the proximity of the village and a proper\npride drove him into the saddle again.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nBeyond Cobham came a delightful incident, delightful, that is, in its\nbeginning if a trifle indeterminate in the retrospect. It was perhaps\nhalf-way between Cobham and Ripley. Mr. Hoopdriver dropped down a little\nhill, where, unfenced from the road, fine mossy trees and bracken lay on\neither side; and looking up he saw an open country before him, covered\nwith heather and set with pines, and a yellow road running across it,\nand half a mile away perhaps, a little grey figure by the wayside waving\nsomething white. \"Never!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver with his hands tightening\non the handles.\n\nHe resumed the treadles, staring away before him, jolted over a stone,\nwabbled, recovered, and began riding faster at once, with his eyes\nahead. \"It can't be,\" said Hoopdriver.\n\nHe rode his straightest, and kept his pedals spinning, albeit a limp\nnumbness had resumed possession of his legs. \"It CAN'T be,\" he repeated,\nfeeling every moment more assured that it WAS. \"Lord! I don't know even\nnow,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver (legs awhirling), and then, \"Blow my legs!\"\n\nBut he kept on and drew nearer and nearer, breathing hard and gathering\nflies like a flypaper. In the valley he was hidden. Then the road began\nto rise, and the resistance of the pedals grew. As he crested the hill\nhe saw her, not a hundred yards away from him. \"It's her!\" he said.\n\"It's her--right enough. It's the suit's done it,\"--which was truer\neven than Mr. Hoopdriver thought. But now she was not waving her\nhandkerchief, she was not even looking at him. She was wheeling her\nmachine slowly along the road towards him, and admiring the pretty\nwooded hills towards Weybridge. She might have been unaware of his\nexistence for all the recognition he got.\n\nFor a moment horrible doubts troubled Mr. Hoopdriver. Had that\nhandkerchief been a dream? Besides which he was deliquescent and\nscarlet, and felt so. It must be her coquetry--the handkerchief was\nindisputable. Should he ride up to her and get off, or get off and ride\nup to her? It was as well she didn't look, because he would certainly\ncapsize if he lifted his cap. Perhaps that was her consideration. Even\nas he hesitated he was upon her. She must have heard his breathing. He\ngripped the brake. Steady! His right leg waved in the air, and he came\ndown heavily and staggering, but erect. She turned her eyes upon him\nwith admirable surprise.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver tried to smile pleasantly, hold up his machine, raise his\ncap, and bow gracefully. Indeed, he felt that he did as much. He was a\nman singularly devoid of the minutiae of self-consciousness, and he was\nquite unaware of a tail of damp hair lying across his forehead, and just\nclearing his eyes, and of the general disorder of his coiffure. There\nwas an interrogative pause.\n\n\"What can I have the pleasure--\" began Mr. Haopdriver, insinuatingly.\n\"I mean\" (remembering his emancipation and abruptly assuming his most\naristocratic intonation), \"can I be of any assistance to you?\"\n\nThe Young Lady in Grey bit her lower lip and said very prettily, \"None,\nthank you.\" She glanced away from him and made as if she would proceed.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, taken aback and suddenly crestfallen\nagain. It was so unexpected. He tried to grasp the situation. Was she\ncoquetting? Or had he--?\n\n\"Excuse me, one minute,\" he said, as she began to wheel her machine\nagain.\n\n\"Yes?\" she said, stopping and staring a little, with the colour in her\ncheeks deepening.\n\n\"I should not have alighted if I had not--imagined that you--er, waved\nsomething white--\" He paused.\n\nShe looked at him doubtfully. He HAD seen it! She decided that he was\nnot an unredeemed rough taking advantage of a mistake, but an innocent\nsoul meaning well while seeking happiness. \"I DID wave my handkerchief,\"\nshe said. \"I'm very sorry. I am expecting--a friend, a gentleman,\"--she\nseemed to flush pink for a minute. \"He is riding a bicycle and dressed\nin--in brown; and at a distance, you know--\"\n\n\"Oh, quite!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, bearing up in manly fashion against\nhis bitter disappointment. \"Certainly.\"\n\n\"I'm awfully sorry, you know. Troubling you to dismount, and all that.\"\n\n\"No trouble. 'Ssure you,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, mechanically and bowing\nover his saddle as if it was a counter. Somehow he could not find it\nin his heart to tell her that the man was beyond there with a punctured\npneumatic. He looked back along the road and tried to think of something\nelse to say. But the gulf in the conversation widened rapidly and\nhopelessly. \"There's nothing further,\" began Mr. Hoopdriver desperately,\nrecurring to his stock of cliches.\n\n\"Nothing, thank you,\" she said decisively. And immediately, \"This IS the\nRipley road?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"Ripley is about two miles from here.\nAccording to the mile-stones.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said warmly. \"Thank you so much. I felt sure there was\nno mistake. And I really am awfully sorry--\"\n\n\"Don't mention it,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"Don't mention it.\" He\nhesitated and gripped his handles to mount. \"It's me,\" he said, \"ought\nto be sorry.\" Should he say it? Was it an impertinence? Anyhow!--\"Not\nbeing the other gentleman, you know.\"\n\nHe tried a quietly insinuating smile that he knew for a grin even as\nhe smiled it; felt she disapproved--that she despised him, was overcome\nwith shame at her expression, turned his back upon her, and began (very\nclumsily) to mount. He did so with a horrible swerve, and went\npedalling off, riding very badly, as he was only too painfully aware.\nNevertheless, thank Heaven for the mounting! He could not see her\nbecause it was so dangerous for him to look round, but he could imagine\nher indignant and pitiless. He felt an unspeakable idiot. One had to be\nso careful what one said to Young Ladies, and he'd gone and treated her\njust as though she was only a Larky Girl. It was unforgivable. He\nalways WAS a fool. You could tell from her manner she didn't think him a\ngentleman. One glance, and she seemed to look clear through him and all\nhis presence. What rot it was venturing to speak to a girl like that!\nWith her education she was bound to see through him at once.\n\nHow nicely she spoke too! nice clear-cut words! She made him feel what\nslush his own accent was. And that last silly remark. What was it? 'Not\nbeing the other gentleman, you know!' No point in it. And 'GENTLEMAN!'\nWhat COULD she be thinking of him?\n\nBut really the Young Lady in Grey had dismissed Hoopdriver from her\nthoughts almost before he had vanished round the corner. She had thought\nno ill of him. His manifest awe and admiration of her had given her not\nan atom of offence. But for her just now there were weightier things\nto think about, things that would affect all the rest of her life. She\ncontinued slowly walking her machine Londonward. Presently she stopped.\n\"Oh! Why DOESN'T he come?\" she said, and stamped her foot petulantly.\nThen, as if in answer, coming down the hill among the trees, appeared\nthe other man in brown, dismounted and wheeling his machine.\n\n\n\n\nIX. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER WAS HAUNTED\n\nAs Mr. Hoopdriver rode swaggering along the Ripley road, it came to him,\nwith an unwarrantable sense of comfort, that he had seen the last of the\nYoung Lady in Grey. But the ill-concealed bladery of the machine, the\npresent machinery of Fate, the deus ex machina, so to speak, was against\nhim. The bicycle, torn from this attractive young woman, grew heavier\nand heavier, and continually more unsteady. It seemed a choice between\nstopping at Ripley or dying in the flower of his days. He went into the\nUnicorn, after propping his machine outside the door, and, as he cooled\ndown and smoked his Red Herring cigarette while the cold meat was\ngetting ready, he saw from the window the Young Lady in Grey and the\nother man in brown, entering Ripley.\n\nThey filled him with apprehension by looking at the house which\nsheltered him, but the sight of his bicycle, propped in a drunk and\nincapable attitude against the doorway, humping its rackety mud-guard\nand leering at them with its darkened lantern eye, drove them away--so\nit seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver--to the spacious swallow of the Golden\nDragon. The young lady was riding very slowly, but the other man in\nbrown had a bad puncture and was wheeling his machine. Mr. Hoopdriver\nnoted his flaxen moustache, his aquiline nose, his rather bent\nshoulders, with a sudden, vivid dislike.\n\nThe maid at the Unicorn is naturally a pleasant girl, but she is jaded\nby the incessant incidence of cyclists, and Hoopdriver's mind, even as\nhe conversed with her in that cultivated voice of his--of the weather,\nof the distance from London, and of the excellence of the Ripley\nroad--wandered to the incomparable freshness and brilliance of the Young\nLady in Grey. As he sat at meat he kept turning his head to the window\nto see what signs there were of that person, but the face of the\nGolden Dragon displayed no appreciation of the delightful morsel it\nhad swallowed. As an incidental consequence of this distraction, Mr.\nHoopdriver was for a minute greatly inconvenienced by a mouthful of\nmustard. After he had called for his reckoning he went, his courage\nbeing high with meat and mustard, to the door, intending to stand, with\nhis legs wide apart and his hands deep in his pockets, and stare boldly\nacross the road. But just then the other man in brown appeared in the\ngateway of the Golden Dragon yard--it is one of those delightful inns\nthat date from the coaching days--wheeling his punctured machine. He\nwas taking it to Flambeau's, the repairer's. He looked up and saw\nHoopdriver, stared for a minute, and then scowled darkly.\n\nBut Hoopdriver remained stoutly in the doorway until the other man in\nbrown had disappeared into Flambeau's. Then he glanced momentarily at\nthe Golden Dragon, puckered his mouth into a whistle of unconcern, and\nproceeded to wheel his machine into the road until a sufficient margin\nfor mounting was secured.\n\nNow, at that time, I say, Hoopdriver was rather desirous than not of\nseeing no more of the Young Lady in Grey. The other man in brown he\nguessed was her brother, albeit that person was of a pallid fairness,\ndiffering essentially from her rich colouring; and, besides, he felt he\nhad made a hopeless fool of himself. But the afternoon was against him,\nintolerably hot, especially on the top of his head, and the virtue had\ngone out of his legs to digest his cold meat, and altogether his ride to\nGuildford was exceedingly intermittent. At times he would walk, at times\nlounge by the wayside, and every public house, in spite of Briggs and a\nsentiment of economy, meant a lemonade and a dash of bitter. (For that\nis the experience of all those who go on wheels, that drinking begets\nthirst, even more than thirst begets drinking, until at last the man who\nyields becomes a hell unto himself, a hell in which the fire dieth\nnot, and the thirst is not quenched.) Until a pennyworth of acrid green\napples turned the current that threatened to carry him away. Ever and\nagain a cycle, or a party of cyclists, would go by, with glittering\nwheels and softly running chains, and on each occasion, to save his\nself-respect, Mr. Hoopdriver descended and feigned some trouble with his\nsaddle. Each time he descended with less trepidation.\n\nHe did not reach Guildford until nearly four o'clock, and then he was\nso much exhausted that he decided to put up there for the night, at\nthe Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern. And after he had cooled a space and\nrefreshed himself with tea and bread and butter and jam,--the tea he\ndrank noisily out of the saucer,--he went out to loiter away the rest of\nthe afternoon. Guildford is an altogether charming old town, famous,\nso he learnt from a Guide Book, as the scene of Master Tupper's great\nhistorical novel of Stephen Langton, and it has a delightful castle, all\nset about with geraniums and brass plates commemorating the gentlemen\nwho put them up, and its Guildhall is a Tudor building, very pleasant to\nsee, and in the afternoon the shops are busy and the people going to and\nfro make the pavements look bright and prosperous. It was nice to peep\nin the windows and see the heads of the men and girls in the drapers'\nshops, busy as busy, serving away. The High Street runs down at an angle\nof seventy degrees to the horizon (so it seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver, whose\nfeeling for gradients was unnaturally exalted), and it brought his heart\ninto his mouth to see a cyclist ride down it, like a fly crawling down a\nwindow pane. The man hadn't even a brake. He visited the castle early in\nthe evening and paid his twopence to ascend the Keep.\n\nAt the top, from the cage, he looked down over the clustering red roofs\nof the town and the tower of the church, and then going to the southern\nside sat down and lit a Red Herring cigarette, and stared away south\nover the old bramble-bearing, fern-beset ruin, at the waves of blue\nupland that rose, one behind another, across the Weald, to the lazy\naltitudes of Hindhead and Butser. His pale grey eyes were full of\ncomplacency and pleasurable anticipation. Tomorrow he would go riding\nacross that wide valley.\n\nHe did not notice any one else had come up the Keep after him until he\nheard a soft voice behind him saying: \"Well, MISS BEAUMONT, here's the\nview.\" Something in the accent pointed to a jest in the name.\n\n\"It's a dear old town, brother George,\" answered another voice that\nsounded familiar enough, and turning his head, Mr. Hoopdriver saw the\nother man in brown and the Young Lady in Grey, with their backs towards\nhim. She turned her smiling profile towards Hoopdriver. \"Only, you know,\nbrothers don't call their sisters--\"\n\nShe glanced over her shoulder and saw Hoopdriver. \"Damn!\" said the other\nman in brown, quite audibly, starting as he followed her glance.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver, with a fine air of indifference, resumed the Weald.\n\"Beautiful old town, isn't it?\" said the other man in brown, after a\nquite perceptible pause.\n\n\"Isn't it?\" said the Young Lady in Grey.\n\nAnother pause began.\n\n\"Can't get alone anywhere,\" said the other man in brown, looking round.\n\nThen Mr. Hoopdriver perceived clearly that he was in the way, and\ndecided to retreat. It was just his luck of course that he should\nstumble at the head of the steps and vanish with indignity. This was the\nthird time that he'd seen HIM, and the fourth time her. And of course\nhe was too big a fat-head to raise his cap to HER! He thought of that at\nthe foot of the Keep. Apparently they aimed at the South Coast just\nas he did, He'd get up betimes the next day and hurry off to avoid\nher--them, that is. It never occurred to Mr. Hoopdriver that Miss\nBeaumont and her brother might do exactly the same thing, and that\nevening, at least, the peculiarity of a brother calling his sister \"Miss\nBeaumont\" did not recur to him. He was much too preoccupied with an\nanalysis of his own share of these encounters. He found it hard to be\naltogether satisfied about the figure he had cut, revise his memories as\nhe would.\n\nOnce more quite unintentionally he stumbled upon these two people. It\nwas about seven o'clock. He stopped outside a linen draper's and peered\nover the goods in the window at the assistants in torment. He could have\nspent a whole day happily at that. He told himself that he was trying\nto see how they dressed out the brass lines over their counters, in a\npurely professional spirit, but down at the very bottom of his heart he\nknew better. The customers were a secondary consideration, and it was\nonly after the lapse of perhaps a minute that he perceived that among\nthem was--the Young Lady in Grey! He turned away from the window\nat once, and saw the other man in brown standing at the edge of the\npavement and regarding him with a very curious expression of face.\n\nThere came into Mr. Hoopdriver's head the curious problem whether he was\nto be regarded as a nuisance haunting these people, or whether they were\nto be regarded as a nuisance haunting him. He abandoned the solution at\nlast in despair, quite unable to decide upon the course he should take\nat the next encounter, whether he should scowl savagely at the couple or\nassume an attitude eloquent of apology and propitiation.\n\n\n\n\nX. THE IMAGININGS OF MR. HOOPDRIVER'S HEART\n\nMr. Hoopdriver was (in the days of this story) a poet, though he had\nnever written a line of verse. Or perhaps romancer will describe him\nbetter. Like I know not how many of those who do the fetching and\ncarrying of life,--a great number of them certainly,--his real life was\nabsolutely uninteresting, and if he had faced it as realistically as\nsuch people do in Mr. Gissing's novels, he would probably have come by\nway of drink to suicide in the course of a year. But that was just what\nhe had the natural wisdom not to do. On the contrary, he was always\ndecorating his existence with imaginative tags, hopes, and poses,\ndeliberate and yet quite effectual self-deceptions; his experiences were\nmere material for a romantic superstructure. If some power had given\nHoopdriver the 'giftie' Burns invoked, 'to see oursels as ithers see\nus,' he would probably have given it away to some one else at the very\nearliest opportunity. His entire life, you must understand, was not a\ncontinuous romance, but a series of short stories linked only by the\ngeneral resemblance of their hero, a brown-haired young fellow commonly,\nwith blue eyes and a fair moustache, graceful rather than strong, sharp\nand resolute rather than clever (cp., as the scientific books say,\np. 2). Invariably this person possessed an iron will. The stories\nfluctuated indefinitely. The smoking of a cigarette converted\nHoopdriver's hero into something entirely worldly, subtly rakish, with a\nhumorous twinkle in the eye and some gallant sinning in the background.\nYou should have seen Mr. Hoopdriver promenading the brilliant gardens at\nEarl's Court on an early-closing night. His meaning glances! (I dare not\ngive the meaning.) Such an influence as the eloquence of a revivalist\npreacher would suffice to divert the story into absolutely different\nchannels, make him a white-soured hero, a man still pure, walking\nuntainted and brave and helpful through miry ways. The appearance of\nsome daintily gloved frockcoated gentleman with buttonhole and eyeglass\ncomplete, gallantly attendant in the rear of customers, served again\nto start visions of a simplicity essentially Cromwell-like, of sturdy\nplainness, of a strong, silent man going righteously through the world.\nThis day there had predominated a fine leisurely person immaculately\nclothed, and riding on an unexceptional machine, a mysterious\nperson--quite unostentatious, but with accidental self-revelation\nof something over the common, even a \"bloomin' Dook,\" it might be\nincognito, on the tour of the South Coast.\n\nYou must not think that there was any TELLING of these stories of this\nlife-long series by Mr. Hoopdriver. He never dreamt that they were known\nto a soul. If it were not for the trouble, I would, I think, go back and\nrewrite this section from the beginning, expunging the statements that\nHoopdriver was a poet and a romancer, and saying instead that he was a\nplaywright and acted his own plays. He was not only the sole performer,\nbut the entire audience, and the entertainment kept him almost\ncontinuously happy. Yet even that playwright comparison scarcely\nexpresses all the facts of the case. After all, very many of his dreams\nnever got acted at all, possibly indeed, most of them, the dreams of\na solitary walk for instance, or of a tramcar ride, the dreams dreamt\nbehind the counter while trade was slack and mechanical foldings\nand rollings occupied his muscles. Most of them were little dramatic\nsituations, crucial dialogues, the return of Mr. Hoopdriver to his\nnative village, for instance, in a well-cut holiday suit and natty\ngloves, the unheard asides of the rival neighbours, the delight of\nthe old 'mater,' the intelligence--\"A ten-pound rise all at once\nfrom Antrobus, mater. Whad d'yer think of that?\" or again, the first\nwhispering of love, dainty and witty and tender, to the girl he served\na few days ago with sateen, or a gallant rescue of generalised beauty in\ndistress from truculent insult or ravening dog.\n\nSo many people do this--and you never suspect it. You see a tattered lad\nselling matches in the street, and you think there is nothing between\nhim and the bleakness of immensity, between him and utter abasement, but\na few tattered rags and a feeble musculature. And all unseen by you a\nhost of heaven-sent fatuities swathes him about, even, maybe, as they\nswathe you about. Many men have never seen their own profiles or the\nbacks of their heads, and for the back of your own mind no mirror has\nbeen invented. They swathe him about so thickly that the pricks of fate\nscarce penetrate to him, or become but a pleasant titillation. And so,\nindeed, it is with all of us who go on living. Self-deception is the\nanaesthetic of life, while God is carving out our beings.\n\nBut to return from this general vivisection to Mr. Hoopdriver's\nimaginings. You see now how external our view has been; we have had but\nthe slightest transitory glimpses of the drama within, of how the things\nlooked in the magic mirror of Mr. Hoopdriver's mind. On the road to\nGuildford and during his encounters with his haunting fellow-cyclists\nthe drama had presented chiefly the quiet gentleman to whom we have\nalluded, but at Guildford, under more varied stimuli, he burgeoned out\nmore variously. There was the house agent's window, for instance, set\nhim upon a charming little comedy. He would go in, make inquires about\nthat thirty-pound house, get the key possibly and go over it--the thing\nwould stimulate the clerk's curiosity immensely. He searched his mind\nfor a reason for this proceeding and discovered that he was a dynamiter\nneeding privacy. Upon that theory he procured the key, explored the\nhouse carefully, said darkly that it might suit his special needs,\nbut that there were OTHERS to consult. The clerk, however, did not\nunderstand the allusion, and merely pitied him as one who had married\nyoung and paired himself to a stronger mind than his own.\n\nThis proceeding in some occult way led to the purchase of a note-book\nand pencil, and that started the conception of an artist taking notes.\nThat was a little game Mr. Hoopdriver had, in congenial company, played\nin his still younger days--to the infinite annoyance of quite a number\nof respectable excursionists at Hastings. In early days Mr. Hoopdriver\nhad been, as his mother proudly boasted, a 'bit of a drawer,' but a\nconscientious and normally stupid schoolmaster perceived the incipient\ntalent and had nipped it in the bud by a series of lessons in art.\nHowever, our principal character figured about quite happily in old\ncorners of Guildford, and once the other man in brown, looking out of\nthe bay window of the Earl of Kent, saw him standing in a corner by\na gateway, note-book in hand, busily sketching the Earl's imposing\nfeatures. At which sight the other man in brown started back from\nthe centre of the window, so as to be hidden from him, and crouching\nslightly, watched him intently through the interstices of the lace\ncurtains.\n\n\n\n\nXI. OMISSIONS\n\nNow the rest of the acts of Mr. Hoopdriver in Guildford, on the great\nopening day of his holidays, are not to be detailed here. How he\nwandered about the old town in the dusk, and up to the Hogsback to see\nthe little lamps below and the little stars above come out one after\nanother; how he returned through the yellow-lit streets to the Yellow\nHammer Coffee Tavern and supped bravely in the commercial room--a Man\namong Men; how he joined in the talk about flying-machines and the\npossibilities of electricity, witnessing that flying-machines were \"dead\ncertain to come,\" and that electricity was \"wonderful, wonderful\"; how\nhe went and watched the billiard playing and said, \"Left 'em\" several\ntimes with an oracular air; how he fell a-yawning; and how he got\nout his cycling map and studied it intently,--are things that find no\nmention here. Nor will I enlarge upon his going into the writing-room,\nand marking the road from London to Guildford with a fine, bright line\nof the reddest of red ink. In his little cyclist hand-book there is a\ndiary, and in the diary there is an entry of these things--it is there\nto this day, and I cannot do better than reproduce it here to witness\nthat this book is indeed a true one, and no lying fable written to while\naway an hour.\n\nAt last he fell a-yawning so much that very reluctantly indeed he set\nabout finishing this great and splendid day. (Alas! that all days\nmust end at last! ) He got his candle in the hall from a friendly\nwaiting-maid, and passed upward--whither a modest novelist, who writes\nfor the family circle, dare not follow. Yet I may tell you that he knelt\ndown at his bedside, happy and drowsy, and said, \"Our Father 'chartin'\nheaven,\" even as he had learnt it by rote from his mother nearly twenty\nyears ago. And anon when his breathing had become deep and regular, we\nmay creep into his bedroom and catch him at his dreams. He is lying\nupon his left side, with his arm under the pillow. It is dark, and he\nis hidden; but if you could have seen his face, sleeping there in the\ndarkness, I think you would have perceived, in spite of that treasured,\nthin, and straggling moustache, in spite of your memory of the coarse\nwords he had used that day, that the man before you was, after all, only\na little child asleep.\n\n\n\n\nXII. THE DREAMS OF MR. HOOPDRIVER\n\nIn spite of the drawn blinds and the darkness, you have just seen Mr.\nHoopdriver's face peaceful in its beauty sleep in the little, plain\nbedroom at the very top of the Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern at Guildford.\nThat was before midnight. As the night progressed he was disturbed by\ndreams.\n\nAfter your first day of cycling one dream is inevitable. A memory of\nmotion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they\nseem to go. You ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles\nthat change and grow; you ride down steeples and staircases and over\nprecipices; you hover in horrible suspense over inhabited towns, vainly\nseeking for a brake your hand cannot find, to save you from a headlong\nfall; you plunge into weltering rivers, and rush helplessly at monstrous\nobstacles. Anon Mr. Hoopdriver found himself riding out of the darkness\nof non-existence, pedalling Ezekiel's Wheels across the Weald of Surrey,\njolting over the hills and smashing villages in his course, while the\nother man in brown cursed and swore at him and shouted to stop his\ncareer. There was the Putney heath-keeper, too, and the man in drab\nraging at him. He felt an awful fool, a--what was it?--a juggins,\nah!--a Juggernaut. The villages went off one after another with a soft,\nsquashing noise. He did not see the Young Lady in Grey, but he knew she\nwas looking at his back. He dared not look round. Where the devil was\nthe brake? It must have fallen off. And the bell? Right in front of him\nwas Guildford. He tried to shout and warn the town to get out of the\nway, but his voice was gone as well. Nearer, nearer! it was fearful! and\nin another moment the houses were cracking like nuts and the blood of\nthe inhabitants squirting this way and that. The streets were black with\npeople running. Right under his wheels he saw the Young Lady in Grey. A\nfeeling of horror came upon Mr. Hoopdriver; he flung himself sideways\nto descend, forgetting how high he was, and forthwith he began falling;\nfalling, falling.\n\nHe woke up, turned over, saw the new moon on the window, wondered a\nlittle, and went to sleep again.\n\nThis second dream went back into the first somehow, and the other man\nin brown came threatening and shouting towards him. He grew uglier and\nuglier as he approached, and his expression was intolerably evil. He\ncame and looked close into Mr. Hoopdriver's eyes and then receded to an\nincredible distance. His face seemed to be luminous. \"MISS BEAUMONT,\" he\nsaid, and splashed up a spray of suspicion. Some one began letting\noff fireworks, chiefly Catherine wheels, down the shop, though Mr.\nHoopdriver knew it was against the rules. For it seemed that the place\nthey were in was a vast shop, and then Mr. Hoopdriver perceived that the\nother man in brown was the shop-walker, differing from most shop-walkers\nin the fact that he was lit from within as a Chinese lantern might be.\nAnd the customer Mr. Hoopdriver was going to serve was the Young Lady\nin Grey. Curious he hadn't noticed it before. She was in grey as\nusual,--rationals,--and she had her bicycle leaning against the counter.\nShe smiled quite frankly at him, just as she had done when she had\napologised for stopping him. And her form, as she leant towards him, was\nfull of a sinuous grace he had never noticed before. \"What can I have\nthe pleasure?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver at once, and she said, \"The Ripley\nroad.\" So he got out the Ripley road and unrolled it and showed it to\nher, and she said that would do very nicely, and kept on looking at him\nand smiling, and he began measuring off eight miles by means of the yard\nmeasure on the counter, eight miles being a dress length, a rational\ndress length, that is; and then the other man in brown came up and\nwanted to interfere, and said Mr. Hoopdriver was a cad, besides\nmeasuring it off too slowly. And as Mr. Hoopdriver began to measure\nfaster, the other man in brown said the Young Lady in Grey had been\nthere long enough, and that he WAS her brother, or else she would not be\ntravelling with him, and he suddenly whipped his arm about her waist and\nmade off with her. It occurred to Mr. Hoopdriver even at the moment that\nthis was scarcely brotherly behaviour. Of course it wasn't! The sight\nof the other man gripping her so familiarly enraged him frightfully; he\nleapt over the counter forthwith and gave chase. They ran round the shop\nand up an iron staircase into the Keep, and so out upon the Ripley road.\nFor some time they kept dodging in and out of a wayside hotel with\ntwo front doors and an inn yard. The other man could not run very fast\nbecause he had hold of the Young Lady in Grey, but Mr. Hoopdriver was\nhampered by the absurd behaviour of his legs. They would not stretch\nout; they would keep going round and round as if they were on the\ntreadles of a wheel, so that he made the smallest steps conceivable.\nThis dream came to no crisis. The chase seemed to last an interminable\ntime, and all kinds of people, heathkeepers, shopmen, policemen, the old\nman in the Keep, the angry man in drab, the barmaid at the Unicorn, men\nwith flying-machines, people playing billiards in the doorways, silly,\nheadless figures, stupid cocks and hens encumbered with parcels\nand umbrellas and waterproofs, people carrying bedroom candles, and\nsuch-like riffraff, kept getting in his way and annoying him, although\nhe sounded his electric bell, and said, \"Wonderful, wonderful!\" at every\ncorner....\n\n\n\n\nXIII. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER WENT TO HASLEMERE\n\nThere was some little delay in getting Mr. Hoopdriver's breakfast, so\nthat after all he was not free to start out of Guildford until just upon\nthe stroke of nine. He wheeled his machine from the High Street in some\nperplexity. He did not know whether this young lady, who had seized hold\nof his imagination so strongly, and her unfriendly and possibly menacing\nbrother, were ahead of him or even now breakfasting somewhere in\nGuildford. In the former case he might loiter as he chose; in the latter\nhe must hurry, and possibly take refuge in branch roads.\n\nIt occurred to him as being in some obscure way strategic, that he would\nleave Guildford not by the obvious Portsmouth road, but by the road\nrunning through Shalford. Along this pleasant shady way he felt\nsufficiently secure to resume his exercises in riding with one hand\noff the handles, and in staring over his shoulder. He came over once\nor twice, but fell on his foot each time, and perceived that he was\nimproving. Before he got to Bramley a specious byway snapped him up, ran\nwith him for half a mile or more, and dropped him as a terrier drops\na walkingstick, upon the Portsmouth again, a couple of miles from\nGodalming. He entered Godalming on his feet, for the road through that\ndelightful town is beyond dispute the vilest in the world, a mere tumult\nof road metal, a way of peaks and precipices, and, after a successful\nexperiment with cider at the Woolpack, he pushed on to Milford.\n\nAll this time he was acutely aware of the existence of the Young Lady\nin Grey and her companion in brown, as a child in the dark is of Bogies.\nSometimes he could hear their pneumatics stealing upon him from behind,\nand looking round saw a long stretch of vacant road. Once he saw far\nahead of him a glittering wheel, but it proved to be a workingman riding\nto destruction on a very tall ordinary. And he felt a curious, vague\nuneasiness about that Young Lady in Grey, for which he was altogether\nunable to account. Now that he was awake he had forgotten that\naccentuated Miss Beaumont that had been quite clear in his dream. But\nthe curious dream conviction, that the girl was not really the man's\nsister, would not let itself be forgotten. Why, for instance, should a\nman want to be alone with his sister on the top of a tower? At Milford\nhis bicycle made, so to speak, an ass of itself. A finger-post suddenly\njumped out at him, vainly indicating an abrupt turn to the right,\nand Mr. Hoopdriver would have slowed up and read the inscription, but\nno!--the bicycle would not let him. The road dropped a little into\nMilford, and the thing shied, put down its head and bolted, and Mr.\nHoopdriver only thought of the brake when the fingerpost was passed.\nThen to have recovered the point of intersection would have meant\ndismounting. For as yet there was no road wide enough for Mr. Hoopdriver\nto turn in. So he went on his way--or to be precise, he did exactly the\nopposite thing. The road to the right was the Portsmouth road, and this\nhe was on went to Haslemere and Midhurst. By that error it came about\nthat he once more came upon his fellow travellers of yesterday, coming\non them suddenly, without the slightest preliminary announcement and\nwhen they least expected it, under the Southwestern Railway arch. \"It's\nhorrible,\" said a girlish voice; \"it's brutal--cowardly--\" And stopped.\n\nHis expression, as he shot out from the archway at them, may have been\nsomething between a grin of recognition and a scowl of annoyance at\nhimself for the unintentional intrusion. But disconcerted as he was, he\nwas yet able to appreciate something of the peculiarity of their mutual\nattitudes. The bicycles were lying by the roadside, and the two riders\nstood face to face. The other man in brown's attitude, as it flashed\nupon Hoopdriver, was a deliberate pose; he twirled his moustache and\nsmiled faintly, and he was conscientiously looking amused. And the girl\nstood rigid, her arms straight by her side, her handkerchief clenched in\nher hand, and her face was flushed, with the faintest touch of red upon\nher eyelids. She seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver's sense to be indignant. But\nthat was the impression of a second. A mask of surprised recognition\nfell across this revelation of emotion as she turned her head towards\nhim, and the pose of the other man in brown vanished too in a momentary\nastonishment. And then he had passed them, and was riding on towards\nHaslemere to make what he could of the swift picture that had\nphotographed itself on his brain.\n\n\"Rum,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"It's DASHED rum!\"\n\n\"They were having a row.\"\n\n\"Smirking--\" What he called the other man in brown need not trouble us.\n\n\"Annoying her!\" That any human being should do that!\n\n\"WHY?\"\n\nThe impulse to interfere leapt suddenly into Mr. Hoopdriver's mind. He\ngrasped his brake, descended, and stood looking hesitatingly back. They\nstill stood by the railway bridge, and it seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver's\nfancy that she was stamping her foot. He hesitated, then turned his\nbicycle round, mounted, and rode back towards them, gripping his courage\nfirmly lest it should slip away and leave him ridiculous. \"I'll offer\n'im a screw 'ammer,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. Then, with a wave of fierce\nemotion, he saw that the girl was crying. In another moment they heard\nhim and turned in surprise. Certainly she had been crying; her eyes\nwere swimming in tears, and the other man in brown looked exceedingly\ndisconcerted. Mr. Hoopdriver descended and stood over his machine.\n\n\"Nothing wrong, I hope?\" he said, looking the other man in brown\nsquarely in the face. \"No accident?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" said the other man in brown shortly. \"Nothing at all,\nthanks.\"\n\n\"But,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, with a great effort, \"the young lady is\ncrying. I thought perhaps--\"\n\nThe Young Lady in Grey started, gave Hoopdriver one swift glance, and\ncovered one eye with her handkerchief. \"It's this speck,\" she said.\n\"This speck of dust in my eye.\"\n\n\"This lady,\" said the other man in brown, explaining, \"has a gnat in her\neye.\"\n\nThere was a pause. The young lady busied herself with her eye. \"I\nbelieve it's out,\" she said. The other man in brown made movements\nindicating commiserating curiosity concerning the alleged fly. Mr.\nHoopdriver--the word is his own--stood flabber-gastered. He had all the\nintuition of the simple-minded. He knew there was no fly. But the\nground was suddenly cut from his feet. There is a limit to\nknighterrantry--dragons and false knights are all very well, but flies!\nFictitious flies! Whatever the trouble was, it was evidently not his\naffair. He felt he had made a fool of himself again. He would have\nmumbled some sort of apology; but the other man in brown gave him no\ntime, turned on him abruptly, even fiercely. \"I hope,\" he said, \"that\nyour curiosity is satisfied?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Then we won't detain you.\"\n\nAnd, ignominiously, Mr. Hoopdriver turned his machine about, struggled\nupon it, and resumed the road southward. And when he learnt that he was\nnot on the Portsmouth road, it was impossible to turn and go back, for\nthat would be to face his shame again, and so he had to ride on by Brook\nStreet up the hill to Haslemere. And away to the right the Portsmouth\nroad mocked at him and made off to its fastnesses amid the sunlit green\nand purple masses of Hindhead, where Mr. Grant Allen writes his Hill Top\nNovels day by day.\n\nThe sun shone, and the wide blue hill views and pleasant valleys one saw\non either hand from the sandscarred roadway, even the sides of the road\nitself set about with grey heather scrub and prickly masses of gorse,\nand pine trees with their year's growth still bright green, against the\ndarkened needles of the previous years, were fresh and delightful to Mr.\nHoopdriver's eyes But the brightness of the day and the day-old sense of\nfreedom fought an uphill fight against his intolerable vexation at that\nabominable encounter, and had still to win it when he reached Haslemere.\nA great brown shadow, a monstrous hatred of the other man in brown,\npossessed him. He had conceived the brilliant idea of abandoning\nPortsmouth, or at least giving up the straight way to his\nfellow-wayfarers, and of striking out boldly to the left, eastward. He\ndid not dare to stop at any of the inviting public-houses in the\nmain street of Haslemere, but turned up a side way and found a little\nbeer-shop, the Good Hope, wherein to refresh himself. And there he ate\nand gossipped condescendingly with an aged labourer, assuming the\nwhile for his own private enjoyment the attributes of a Lost Heir, and\nafterwards mounted and rode on towards Northchapel, a place which a\nnumber of finger-posts conspired to boom, but which some insidious\nturning prevented him from attaining.\n\n\n\n\nXIV. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER REACHED MIDHURST\n\nIt was one of my uncle's profoundest remarks that human beings are the\nonly unreasonable creatures. This observation was so far justified by\nMr. Hoopdriver that, after spending the morning tortuously avoiding the\nother man in brown and the Young Lady in Grey, he spent a considerable\npart of the afternoon in thinking about the Young Lady in Grey, and\ncontemplating in an optimistic spirit the possibilities of seeing her\nagain. Memory and imagination played round her, so that his course was\nlargely determined by the windings of the road he traversed. Of one\ngeneral proposition he was absolutely convinced. \"There's something\nJuicy wrong with 'em,\" said he--once even aloud. But what it was he\ncould not imagine. He recapitulated the facts. \"Miss Beaumont--brother\nand sister--and the stoppage to quarrel and weep--\" it was perplexing\nmaterial for a young man of small experience. There was no exertion he\nhated so much as inference, and after a time he gave up any attempt\nto get at the realities of the case, and let his imagination go free.\nShould he ever see her again? Suppose he did--with that other chap not\nabout. The vision he found pleasantest was an encounter with her, an\nunexpected encounter at the annual Dancing Class 'Do' at the Putney\nAssembly Rooms. Somehow they would drift together, and he would dance\nwith her again and again. It was a pleasant vision, for you must\nunderstand that Mr. Hoopdriver danced uncommonly well. Or again, in the\nshop, a sudden radiance in the doorway, and she is bowed towards the\nManchester counter. And then to lean over that counter and murmur,\nseemingly apropos of the goods under discussion, \"I have not forgotten\nthat morning on the Portsmouth road,\" and lower, \"I never shall forget.\"\n\nAt Northchapel Mr. Hoopdriver consulted his map and took counsel and\nweighed his course of action. Petworth seemed a possible resting-place,\nor Pullborough; Midhurst seemed too near, and any place over the Downs\nbeyond, too far, and so he meandered towards Petworth, posing himself\nperpetually and loitering, gathering wild flowers and wondering why they\nhad no names--for he had never heard of any--dropping them furtively\nat the sight of a stranger, and generally 'mucking about.' There\nwere purple vetches in the hedges, meadowsweet, honeysuckle, belated\nbrambles--but the dog-roses had already gone; there were green and red\nblackberries, stellarias, and dandelions, and in another place white\ndead nettles, traveller's-joy, clinging bedstraw, grasses flowering,\nwhite campions, and ragged robins. One cornfield was glorious with\npoppies, bright scarlet and purple white, and the blue corn-flowers were\nbeginning. In the lanes the trees met overhead, and the wisps of hay\nstill hung to the straggling hedges. Iri one of the main roads he\nsteered a perilous passage through a dozen surly dun oxen. Here and\nthere were little cottages, and picturesque beer-houses with the vivid\nbrewers' boards of blue and scarlet, and once a broad green and a\nchurch, and an expanse of some hundred houses or so. Then he came to\na pebbly rivulet that emerged between clumps of sedge loosestrife and\nforget-me-nots under an arch of trees, and rippled across the road,\nand there he dismounted, longing to take off shoes and stockings--those\nstylish chequered stockings were now all dimmed with dust--and paddle\nhis lean legs in the chuckling cheerful water. But instead he sat in\na manly attitude, smoking a cigarette, for fear lest the Young Lady in\nGrey should come glittering round the corner. For the flavour of the\nYoung Lady in Grey was present through it all, mixing with the flowers\nand all the delight of it, a touch that made this second day quite\ndifferent from the first, an undertone of expectation, anxiety, and\nsomething like regret that would not be ignored.\n\nIt was only late in the long evening that, quite abruptly, he began\nto repent, vividly and decidedly, having fled these two people. He\nwas getting hungry, and that has a curious effect upon the emotional\ncolouring of our minds. The man was a sinister brute, Hoopdriver saw in\na flash of inspiration, and the girl--she was in some serious trouble.\nAnd he who might have helped her had taken his first impulse as\ndecisive--and bolted. This new view of it depressed him dreadfully. What\nmight not be happening to her now? He thought again of her tears. Surely\nit was merely his duty, seeing the trouble afoot, to keep his eye upon\nit.\n\nHe began riding fast to get quit of such selfreproaches. He found\nhimself in a tortuous tangle of roads, and as the dusk was coming on,\nemerged, not at Petworth but at Easebourne, a mile from Midhurst. \"I'm\ngetting hungry,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, inquiring of a gamekeeper in\nEasebourne village. \"Midhurst a mile, and Petworth five!--Thenks, I'll\ntake Midhurst.\"\n\nHe came into Midhurst by the bridge at the watermill, and up the North\nStreet, and a little shop flourishing cheerfully, the cheerful sign of\na teapot, and exhibiting a brilliant array of tobaccos, sweets, and\nchildren's toys in the window, struck his fancy. A neat, bright-eyed\nlittle old lady made him welcome, and he was presently supping\nsumptuously on sausages and tea, with a visitors' book full of the most\nhumorous and flattering remarks about the little old lady, in verse and\nprose, propped up against his teapot as he ate. Regular good some of\nthe jokes were, and rhymes that read well--even with your mouth full\nof sausage. Mr. Hoopdriver formed a vague idea of drawing\n\"something\"--for his judgment on the little old lady was already formed.\nHe pictured the little old lady discovering it afterwards--\"My gracious!\nOne of them Punch men,\" she would say. The room had a curtained recess\nand a chest of drawers, for presently it was to be his bedroom, and the\nday part of it was decorated with framed Oddfellows' certificates and\ngiltbacked books and portraits, and kettle-holders, and all kinds of\nbeautiful things made out of wool; very comfortable it was indeed. The\nwindow was lead framed and diamond paned, and through it one saw the\ncorner of the vicarage and a pleasant hill crest, in dusky silhouette\nagainst the twilight sky. And after the sausages had ceased to be, he\nlit a Red Herring cigarette and went swaggering out into the twilight\nstreet. All shadowy blue between its dark brick houses, was the street,\nwith a bright yellow window here and there and splashes of green and red\nwhere the chemist's illumination fell across the road.\n\n\n\n\nXV. AN INTERLUDE\n\nAnd now let us for a space leave Mr. Hoopdriver in the dusky Midhurst\nNorth Street, and return to the two folks beside the railway bridge\nbetween Milford and Haslemere. She was a girl of eighteen, dark,\nfine featured, with bright eyes, and a rich, swift colour under her\nwarm-tinted skin. Her eyes were all the brighter for the tears that swam\nin them. The man was thirty three or four, fair, with a longish nose\noverhanging his sandy flaxen moustache, pale blue eyes, and a head that\nstruck out above and behind. He stood with his feet wide apart, his hand\non his hip, in an attitude that was equally suggestive of defiance and\naggression. They had watched Hoopdriver out of sight. The unexpected\ninterruption had stopped the flood of her tears. He tugged his abundant\nmoustache and regarded her calmly. She stood with face averted,\nobstinately resolved not to speak first. \"Your behaviour,\" he said at\nlast, \"makes you conspicuous.\"\n\nShe turned upon him, her eyes and cheeks glowing, her hands clenched.\n\"You unspeakable CAD,\" she said, and choked, stamped her little foot,\nand stood panting.\n\n\"Unspeakable cad! My dear girl! Possible I AM an unspeakable cad. Who\nwouldn't be--for you?\"\n\n\"'Dear girl!' How DARE you speak to me like that? YOU--\"\n\n\"I would do anything--\"\n\n\"OH!\"\n\nThere was a moment's pause. She looked squarely into his face, her eyes\nalight with anger and contempt, and perhaps he flushed a little. He\nstroked his moustache, and by an effort maintained his cynical calm.\n\"Let us be reasonable,\" he said.\n\n\"Reasonable! That means all that is mean and cowardly and sensual in the\nworld.\"\n\n\"You have always had it so--in your generalising way. But let us look at\nthe facts of the case--if that pleases you better.\"\n\nWith an impatient gesture she motioned him to go on.\n\n\"Well,\" he said,--\"you've eloped.\"\n\n\"I've left my home,\" she corrected, with dignity. \"I left my home\nbecause it was unendurable. Because that woman--\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. But the point is, you have eloped with me.\"\n\n\"You came with me. You pretended to be my friend. Promised to help me to\nearn a living by writing. It was you who said, why shouldn't a man and\nwoman be friends? And now you dare--you dare--\"\n\n\"Really, Jessie, this pose of yours, this injured innocence--\"\n\n\"I will go back. I forbid you--I forbid you to stand in the way--\"\n\n\"One moment. I have always thought that my little pupil was at least\nclear-headed. You don't know everything yet, you know. Listen to me for\na moment.\"\n\n\"Haven't I been listening? And you have only insulted me. You who dared\nonly to talk of friendship, who scarcely dared hint at anything beyond.\"\n\n\"But you took the hints, nevertheless. You knew. You KNEW. And you did\nnot mind. MIND! You liked it. It was the fun of the whole thing for you.\nThat I loved you, and could not speak to you. You played with it--\"\n\n\"You have said all that before. Do you think that justifies you?\"\n\n\"That isn't all. I made up my mind--Well, to make the game more even.\nAnd so I suggested to you and joined with you in this expedition of\nyours, invented a sister at Midhurst--I tell you, I HAVEN'T a sister!\nFor one object--\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"To compromise you.\"\n\nShe started. That was a new way of putting it. For half a minute\nneither spoke. Then she began half defiantly: \"Much I am compromised. Of\ncourse--I have made a fool of myself--\"\n\n\"My dear girl, you are still on the sunny side of eighteen, and you\nknow very little of this world. Less than you think. But you will learn.\nBefore you write all those novels we have talked about, you will have\nto learn. And that's one point--\" He hesitated. \"You started and blushed\nwhen the man at breakfast called you Ma'am. You thought it a funny\nmistake, but you did not say anything because he was young and\nnervous--and besides, the thought of being my wife offended your\nmodesty. You didn't care to notice it. But--you see; I gave your name\nas MRS. Beaumont.\" He looked almost apologetic, in spite of his cynical\npose. \"MRS. Beaumont,\" he repeated, pulling his flaxen moustache and\nwatching the effect.\n\nShe looked into his eyes speechless. \"I am learning fast,\" she said\nslowly, at last.\n\nHe thought the time had come for an emotional attack. \"Jessie,\" he said,\nwith a sudden change of voice, \"I know all this is mean, isvillanous.\nBut do you think that I have done all this scheming, all this\nsubterfuge, for any other object--\"\n\nShe did not seem to listen to his words. \"I shall ride home,\" she said\nabruptly.\n\n\"To her?\"\n\nShe winced.\n\n\"Just think,\" said he, \"what she could say to you after this.\"\n\n\"Anyhow, I shall leave you now.\"\n\n\"Yes? And go--\"\n\n\"Go somewhere to earn my living, to be a free woman, to live without\nconventionality--\"\n\n\"My dear girl, do let us be cynical. You haven't money and you haven't\ncredit. No one would take you in. It's one of two things: go back to\nyour stepmother, or--trust to me.\"\n\n\"How CAN I?\"\n\n\"Then you must go back to her.\" He paused momentarily, to let this\nconsideration have its proper weight. \"Jessie, I did not mean to say\nthe things I did. Upon my honour, I lost my head when I spoke so. If you\nwill, forgive me. I am a man. I could not help myself. Forgive me, and I\npromise you--\"\n\n\"How can I trust you?\"\n\n\"Try me. I can assure you--\"\n\nShe regarded him distrustfully.\n\n\"At any rate, ride on with me now. Surely we have been in the shadow of\nthis horrible bridge long enough.\"\n\n\"Oh! let me think,\" she said, half turning from him and pressing her\nhand to her brow.\n\n\"THINK! Look here, Jessie. It is ten o'clock. Shall we call a truce\nuntil one?\"\n\nShe hesitated, demanded a definition of the truce, and at last agreed.\n\nThey mounted, and rode on in silence, through the sunlight and the\nheather. Both were extremely uncomfortable and disappointed. She was\npale, divided between fear and anger. She perceived she was in a scrape,\nand tried in vain to think of a way of escape. Only one tangible thing\nwould keep in her mind, try as she would to ignore it. That was the\nquite irrelevant fact that his head was singularly like an albino\ncocoanut. He, too, felt thwarted. He felt that this romantic business\nof seduction was, after all, unexpectedly tame. But this was only the\nbeginning. At any rate, every day she spent with him was a day gained.\nPerhaps things looked worse than they were; that was some consolation.\n\n\n\n\nXVI. OF THE ARTIFICIAL IN MAN, AND OF THE ZEITGEIST\n\nYou have seen these two young people--Bechamel, by-the-bye, is the man's\nname, and the girl's is Jessie Milton--from the outside; you have heard\nthem talking; they ride now side by side (but not too close together,\nand in an uneasy silence) towards Haslemere; and this chapter will\nconcern itself with those curious little council chambers inside their\nskulls, where their motives are in session and their acts are considered\nand passed.\n\nBut first a word concerning wigs and false teeth. Some jester, enlarging\nupon the increase of bald heads and purblind people, has deduced a\nwonderful future for the children of men. Man, he said, was nowadays\na hairless creature by forty or fifty, and for hair we gave him a wig;\nshrivelled, and we padded him; toothless, and lo! false teeth set in\ngold. Did he lose a limb, and a fine, new, artificial one was at his\ndisposal; get indigestion, and to hand was artificial digestive fluid\nor bile or pancreatine, as the case might be. Complexions, too,\nwere replaceable, spectacles superseded an inefficient eye-lens, and\nimperceptible false diaphragms were thrust into the failing ear. So\nhe went over our anatomies, until, at last, he had conjured up a weird\nthing of shreds and patches, a simulacrum, an artificial body of a\nman, with but a doubtful germ of living flesh lurking somewhere in his\nrecesses. To that, he held, we were coming.\n\nHow far such odd substitution for the body is possible need not concern\nus now. But the devil, speaking by the lips of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, hath\nit that in the case of one Tomlinson, the thing, so far as the soul is\nconcerned, has already been accomplished. Time was when men had\nsimple souls, desires as natural as their eyes, a little reasonable\nphilanthropy, a little reasonable philoprogenitiveness, hunger, and a\ntaste for good living, a decent, personal vanity, a healthy, satisfying\npugnacity, and so forth. But now we are taught and disciplined for\nyears and years, and thereafter we read and read for all the time some\nstrenuous, nerve-destroying business permits. Pedagogic hypnotists,\npulpit and platform hypnotists, book-writing hypnotists,\nnewspaper-writing hypnotists, are at us all. This sugar you are eating,\nthey tell us, is ink, and forthwith we reject it with infinite disgust.\nThis black draught of unrequited toil is True Happiness, and down it\ngoes with every symptom of pleasure. This Ibsen, they say, is dull\npast believing, and we yawn and stretch beyond endurance. Pardon! they\ninterrupt, but this Ibsen is deep and delightful, and we vie with one\nanother in an excess of entertainment. And when we open the heads of\nthese two young people, we find, not a straightforward motive on the\nsurface anywhere; we find, indeed, not a soul so much as an oversoul,\na zeitgeist, a congestion of acquired ideas, a highway's feast of fine,\nconfused thinking. The girl is resolute to Live Her Own Life, a phrase\nyou may have heard before, and the man has a pretty perverted ambition\nto be a cynical artistic person of the very calmest description. He is\nhoping for the awakening of Passion in her, among other things. He knows\nPassion ought to awaken, from the text-books he has studied. He knows\nshe admires his genius, but he is unaware that she does not admire his\nhead. He is quite a distinguished art critic in London, and he met her\nat that celebrated lady novelist's, her stepmother, and here you have\nthem well embarked upon the Adventure. Both are in the first stage of\nrepentance, which consists, as you have probably found for yourself, in\nsetting your teeth hard and saying' \"I WILL go on.\"\n\nThings, you see, have jarred a little, and they ride on their way\ntogether with a certain aloofness of manner that promises ill for\nthe orthodox development of the Adventure. He perceives he was too\nprecipitate. But he feels his honour is involved, and meditates the\ndevelopment of a new attack. And the girl? She is unawakened. Her\nmotives are bookish, written by a haphazard syndicate of authors,\nnovelists, and biographers, on her white inexperience. An artificial\noversoul she is, that may presently break down and reveal a human being\nbeneath it. She is still in that schoolgirl phase when a talkative old\nman is more interesting than a tongue-tied young one, and when to be an\neminent mathematician, say, or to edit a daily paper, seems as fine an\nambition as any girl need aspire to. Bechaniel was to have helped her to\nattain that in the most expeditious manner, and here he is beside her,\ntalking enigmatical phrases about passion, looking at her with the\noddest expression, and once, and that was his gravest offence, offering\nto kiss her. At any rate he has apologised. She still scarcely realises,\nyou see, the scrape she has got into.\n\n\n\n\nXVII. THE ENCOUNTER AT MIDHURST\n\nWe left Mr. Hoopdriver at the door of the little tea, toy, and tobacco\nshop. You must not think that a strain is put on coincidence when I\ntell you that next door to Mrs. Wardor's--that was the name of the\nbright-eyed, little old lady with whom Mr. Hoopdriver had stopped--is\nthe Angel Hotel, and in the Angel Hotel, on the night that Mr.\nHoopdriver reached Midhurst, were 'Mr.' and 'Miss' Beaumont, our\nBechamel and Jessie Milton. Indeed, it was a highly probable thing; for\nif one goes through Guildford, the choice of southward roads is limited;\nyou may go by Petersfield to Portsmouth, or by Midhurst to Chichester,\nin addition to which highways there is nothing for it but minor roadways\nto Petworth or Pulborough, and cross-cuts Brightonward. And coming to\nMidhurst from the north, the Angel's entrance lies yawning to engulf\nyour highly respectable cyclists, while Mrs. Wardor's genial teapot is\nequally attractive to those who weigh their means in little scales.\nBut to people unfamiliar with the Sussex roads--and such were the\nthree persons of this story--the convergence did not appear to be so\ninevitable.\n\nBechamel, tightening his chain in the Angel yard after dinner, was the\nfirst to be aware of their reunion. He saw Hoopdriver walk slowly across\nthe gateway, his head enhaloed in cigarette smoke, and pass out of sight\nup the street. Incontinently a mass of cloudy uneasiness, that had been\npartly dispelled during the day, reappeared and concentrated rapidly\ninto definite suspicion. He put his screw hammer into his pocket and\nwalked through the archway into the street, to settle the business\nforthwith, for he prided himself on his decision. Hoopdriver was merely\npromenading, and they met face to face.\n\nAt the sight of his adversary, something between disgust and laughter\nseized Mr. Hoopdriver and for a moment destroyed his animosity. \"'Ere\nwe are again!\" he said, laughing insincerely in a sudden outbreak at the\nperversity of chance.\n\nThe other man in brown stopped short in Mr. Hoopdriver's way, staring.\nThen his face assumed an expression of dangerous civility. \"Is it any\ninformation to you,\" he said, with immense politeness, \"when I remark\nthat you are following us?\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver, for some occult reason, resisted his characteristic\nimpulse to apologise. He wanted to annoy the other man in brown, and a\nsentence that had come into his head in a previous rehearsal cropped up\nappropriately. \"Since when,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, catching his breath,\nyet bringing the question out valiantly, nevertheless,--\"since when 'ave\nyou purchased the county of Sussex?\"\n\n\"May I point out,\" said the other man in brown, \"that I object--we\nobject not only to your proximity to us. To be frank--you appear to be\nfollowing us--with an object.\"\n\n\"You can always,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, \"turn round if you don't like it,\nand go back the way you came.\"\n\n\"Oh-o!\" said the other man in brown. \"THAT'S it! I thought as much.\"\n\n\"Did you?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, quite at sea, but rising pluckily to the\nunknown occasion. What was the man driving at?\n\n\"I see,\" said the other man. \"I see. I half suspected--\" His manner\nchanged abruptly to a quality suspiciously friendly. \"Yes--a word with\nyou. You will, I hope, give me ten minutes.\"\n\nWonderful things were dawning on Mr. Hoopdriver. What did the other man\ntake him for? Here at last was reality! He hesitated. Then he thought of\nan admirable phrase. \"You 'ave some communication--\"\n\n\"We'll call it a communication,\" said the other man.\n\n\"I can spare you the ten minutes,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, with dignity.\n\n\"This way, then,\" said the other man in brown, and they walked slowly\ndown the North Street towards the Grammar School. There was, perhaps,\nthirty seconds' silence. The other man stroked his moustache nervously.\nMr. Hoopdriver's dramatic instincts were now fully awake. He did\nnot quite understand in what role he was cast, but it was evidently\nsomething dark and mysterious. Doctor Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, and\nAlexander Dumas were well within Mr. Hoopdriver's range of reading, and\nhe had not read them for nothing.\n\n\"I will be perfectly frank with you,\" said the other man in brown.\n\n\"Frankness is always the best course,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Well, then--who the devil set you on this business?\"\n\n\"Set me ON this business?\"\n\n\"Don't pretend to be stupid. Who's your employer? Who engaged you for\nthis job?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, confused. \"No--I can't say.\"\n\n\"Quite sure?\" The other man in brown glanced meaningly down at his hand,\nand Mr. Hoopdriver, following him mechanically, saw a yellow milled edge\nglittering in the twilight. Now your shop assistant is just above the\ntip-receiving class, and only just above it--so that he is acutely\nsensitive on the point.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver flushed hotly, and his eyes were angry as he met those\nof the other man in brown. \"Stow it!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, stopping and\nfacing the tempter.\n\n\"What!\" said the other man in brown, surprised. \"Eigh?\" And so saying he\nstowed it in his breeches pocket.\n\n\"D'yer think I'm to be bribed?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, whose imagination\nwas rapidly expanding the situation. \"By Gosh! I'd follow you now--\"\n\n\"My dear sir,\" said the other man in brown, \"I beg your pardon. I\nmisunderstood you. I really beg your pardon. Let us walk on. In your\nprofession--\"\n\n\"What have you got to say against my profession?\"\n\n\"Well, really, you know. There are detectives of an inferior\ndescription--watchers. The whole class. Private Inquiry--I did not\nrealise--I really trust you will overlook what was, after all--you must\nadmit--a natural indiscretion. Men of honour are not so common in the\nworld--in any profession.\"\n\nIt was lucky for Mr. Hoopdriver that in Midhurst they do not light the\nlamps in the summer time, or the one they were passing had betrayed him.\nAs it was, he had to snatch suddenly at his moustache and tug fiercely\nat it, to conceal the furious tumult of exultation, the passion of\nlaughter, that came boiling up. Detective! Even in the shadow Bechamel\nsaw that a laugh was stifled, but he put it down to the fact that the\nphrase \"men of honour\" amused his interlocutor. \"He'll come round yet,\"\nsaid Bechamel to himself. \"He's simply holding out for a fiver.\" He\ncoughed.\n\n\"I don't see that it hurts you to tell me who your employer is.\"\n\n\"Don't you? I do.\"\n\n\"Prompt,\" said Bechamel, appreciatively. \"Now here's the thing I want to\nput to you--the kernel of the whole business. You need not answer if\nyou don't want to. There's no harm done in my telling you what I want to\nknow. Are you employed to watch me--or Miss Milton?\"\n\n\"I'm not the leaky sort,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, keeping the secret he did\nnot know with immense enjoyment. Miss Milton! That was her name. Perhaps\nhe'd tell some more. \"It's no good pumping. Is that all you're after?\"\nsaid Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\nBechamel respected himself for his diplomatic gifts. He tried to catch\na remark by throwing out a confidence. \"I take it there are two people\nconcerned in watching this affair.\"\n\n\"Who's the other?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, calmly, but controlling with\nenormous internal tension his self-appreciation. \"Who's the other?\" was\nreally brilliant, he thought.\n\n\"There's my wife and HER stepmother.\"\n\n\"And you want to know which it is?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Bechamel.\n\n\"Well--arst 'em!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, his exultation getting the better\nof him, and with a pretty consciousness of repartee. \"Arst 'em both.\"\n\nBechamel turned impatiently. Then he made a last effort. \"I'd give a\nfive-pound note to know just the precise state of affairs,\" he said.\n\n\"I told you to stow that,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, in a threatening tone.\nAnd added with perfect truth and a magnificent mystery, \"You don't quite\nunderstand who you're dealing with. But you will!\" He spoke with such\nconviction that he half believed that that defective office of his in\nLondon--Baker Street, in fact--really existed.\n\nWith that the interview terminated. Bechamel went back to the Angel,\nperturbed. \"Hang detectives!\" It wasn't the kind of thing he had\nanticipated at all. Hoopdriver, with round eyes and a wondering smile,\nwalked down to where the mill waters glittered in the moonlight, and\nafter meditating over the parapet of the bridge for a space, with\noccasional murmurs of, \"Private Inquiry\" and the like, returned, with\nmystery even in his paces, towards the town.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII.\n\nThat glee which finds expression in raised eyebrows and long, low\nwhistling noises was upon Mr. Hoopdriver. For a space he forgot the\ntears of the Young Lady in Grey. Here was a new game!--and a real one.\nMr. Hoopdriver as a Private Inquiry Agent, a Sherlock Holmes in fact,\nkeeping these two people 'under observation.' He walked slowly back from\nthe bridge until he was opposite the Angel, and stood for ten minutes,\nperhaps, contemplating that establishment and enjoying all the strange\nsensations of being this wonderful, this mysterious and terrible thing.\nEverything fell into place in his scheme. He had, of course, by a kind\nof instinct, assumed the disguise of a cyclist, picked up the first\nold crock he came across as a means of pursuit. 'No expense was to be\nspared.'\n\nThen he tried to understand what it was in particular that he was\nobserving. \"My wife\"--\"HER stepmother!\" Then he remembered her swimming\neyes. Abruptly came a wave of anger that surprised him, washed away the\ndetective superstructure, and left him plain Mr. Hoopdriver. This man in\nbrown, with his confident manner, and his proffered half sovereign (damn\nhim!) was up to no good, else why should he object to being watched? He\nwas married! She was not his sister. He began to understand. A horrible\nsuspicion of the state of affairs came into Mr. Hoopdriver's head.\nSurely it had not come to THAT. He was a detective!--he would find\nout. How was it to be done? He began to submit sketches on approval to\nhimself. It required an effort before he could walk into the Angel bar.\n\"A lemonade and bitter, please,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"Are Mr. and Mrs. Bowlong stopping here?\"\n\n\"What, a gentleman and a young lady--on bicycles?\"\n\n\"Fairly young--a married couple.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the barmaid, a talkative person of ample dimensions. \"There's\nno married couples stopping here. But there's a Mr. and Miss BEAUMONT.\"\nShe spelt it for precision. \"Sure you've got the name right, young man?\"\n\n\"Quite,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Beaumont there is, but no one of the name of--What was the name you\ngave?\"\n\n\"Bowlong,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"No, there ain't no Bowlong,\" said the barmaid, taking up a glasscloth\nand a drying tumbler and beginning to polish the latter. \"First off, I\nthought you might be asking for Beaumont--the names being similar. Were\nyou expecting them on bicycles?\"\n\n\"Yes--they said they MIGHT be in Midhurst tonight.\"\n\n\"P'raps they'll come presently. Beaumont's here, but no Bowlong. Sure\nthat Beaumont ain't the name?\"\n\n\"Certain,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"It's curious the names being so alike. I thought p'raps--\"\n\nAnd so they conversed at some length, Mr. Hoopdriver delighted to find\nhis horrible suspicion disposed of. The barmaid having listened awhile\nat the staircase volunteered some particulars of the young couple\nupstairs. Her modesty was much impressed by the young lady's costume, so\nshe intimated, and Mr. Hoopdriver whispered the badinage natural to the\noccasion, at which she was coquettishly shocked. \"There'll be no knowing\nwhich is which, in a year or two,\" said the barmaid. \"And her manner\ntoo! She got off her machine and give it 'im to stick up against the\nkerb, and in she marched. 'I and my brother,' says she, 'want to stop\nhere to-night. My brother doesn't mind what kind of room 'e 'as, but I\nwant a room with a good view, if there's one to be got,' says she. He\ncomes hurrying in after and looks at her. 'I've settled the rooms,' she\nsays, and 'e says 'damn!' just like that. I can fancy my brother letting\nme boss the show like that.\"\n\n\"I dessay you do,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, \"if the truth was known.\"\n\nThe barmaid looked down, smiled and shook her head, put down the\ntumbler, polished, and took up another that had been draining, and shook\nthe drops of water into her little zinc sink.\n\n\"She'll be a nice little lot to marry,\" said the barmaid. \"She'll be\nwearing the--well, b-dashes, as the sayin' is. I can't think what girls\nis comin' to.\"\n\nThis depreciation of the Young Lady in Grey was hardly to Hoopdriver's\ntaste.\n\n\"Fashion,\" said he, taking up his change. \"Fashion is all the go with\nyou ladies--and always was. You'll be wearing 'em yourself before a\ncouple of years is out.\"\n\n\"Nice they'd look on my figger,\" said the barmaid, with a titter. \"No--I\nain't one of your fashionable sort. Gracious no! I shouldn't feel as\nif I'd anything on me, not more than if I'd forgot--Well, there! I'm\ntalking.\" She put down the glass abruptly. \"I dessay I'm old fashioned,\"\nshe said, and walked humming down the bar.\n\n\"Not you,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. He waited until he caught her eye, then\nwith his native courtesy smiled, raised his cap, and wished her good\nevening.\n\n\n\n\nXIX.\n\nThen Mr. Hoopdriver returned to the little room with the lead-framed\nwindows where he had dined, and where the bed was now comfortably made,\nsat down on the box under the window, stared at the moon rising on\nthe shining vicarage roof, and tried to collect his thoughts. How they\nwhirled at first! It was past ten, and most of Midhurst was tucked\naway in bed, some one up the street was learning the violin, at rare\nintervals a belated inhabitant hurried home and woke the echoes, and a\ncorncrake kept up a busy churning in the vicarage garden. The sky was\ndeep blue, with a still luminous afterglow along the black edge of the\nhill, and the white moon overhead, save for a couple of yellow stars,\nhad the sky to herself.\n\nAt first his thoughts were kinetic, of deeds and not relationships.\nThere was this malefactor, and his victim, and it had fallen on Mr.\nHoopdriver to take a hand in the game. HE was married. Did she know he\nwas married? Never for a moment did a thought of evil concerning her\ncross Hoopdriver's mind. Simple-minded people see questions of morals so\nmuch better than superior persons--who have read and thought themselves\ncomplex to impotence. He had heard her voice, seen the frank light in\nher eyes, and she had been weeping--that sufficed. The rights of the\ncase he hadn't properly grasped. But he would. And that smirking--well,\nswine was the mildest for him. He recalled the exceedingly unpleasant\nincident of the railway bridge. \"Thin we won't detain yer, thenks,\"\nsaid Mr. Hoopdriver, aloud, in a strange, unnatural, contemptible voice,\nsupposed to represent that of Bechamel. \"Oh, the BEGGAR! I'll be level\nwith him yet. He's afraid of us detectives--that I'll SWEAR.\" (If Mrs.\nWardor should chance to be on the other side of the door within earshot,\nwell and good.)\n\nFor a space he meditated chastisements and revenges, physical\nimpossibilities for the most part,--Bechamel staggering headlong from\nthe impact of Mr. Hoopdriver's large, but, to tell the truth, ill\nsupported fist, Bechamel's five feet nine of height lifted from the\nground and quivering under a vigorously applied horsewhip. So pleasant\nwas such dreaming, that Mr. Hoopdriver's peaked face under the moonlight\nwas transfigured. One might have paired him with that well-known and\nuniversally admired triumph, 'The Soul's Awakening,' so sweet was his\necstasy. And presently with his thirst for revenge glutted by six or\nseven violent assaults, a duel and two vigorous murders, his mind came\nround to the Young Lady in Grey again.\n\nShe was a plucky one too. He went over the incident the barmaid at\nthe Angel had described to him. His thoughts ceased to be a torrent,\nsmoothed down to a mirror in which she was reflected with infinite\nclearness and detail. He'd never met anything like her before. Fancy\nthat bolster of a barmaid being dressed in that way! He whuffed a\ncontemptuous laugh. He compared her colour, her vigour, her voice, with\nthe Young Ladies in Business with whom his lot had been cast. Even in\ntears she was beautiful, more beautiful indeed to him, for it made her\nseem softer and weaker, more accessible. And such weeping as he had seen\nbefore had been so much a matter of damp white faces, red noses, and\nhair coming out of curl. Your draper's assistant becomes something of a\njudge of weeping, because weeping is the custom of all Young Ladies in\nBusiness, when for any reason their services are dispensed with. She\ncould weep--and (by Gosh!) she could smile. HE knew that, and reverting\nto acting abruptly, he smiled confidentially at the puckered pallor of\nthe moon.\n\nIt is difficult to say how long Mr. Hoopdriver's pensiveness lasted.\nIt seemed a long time before his thoughts of action returned. Then he\nremembered he was a 'watcher'; that to-morrow he must be busy. It would\nbe in character to make notes, and he pulled out his little note-book.\nWith that in hand he fell a-thinking again. Would that chap tell her the\n'tecks were after them? If so, would she be as anxious to get away as HE\nwas? He must be on the alert. If possible he must speak to her. Just\na significant word, \"Your friend--trust me!\"--It occurred to him that\nto-morrow these fugitives might rise early to escape. At that he thought\nof the time and found it was half-past eleven. \"Lord!\" said he, \"I must\nsee that I wake.\" He yawned and rose. The blind was up, and he pulled\nback the little chintz curtains to let the sunlight strike across to\nthe bed, hung his watch within good view of his pillow, on a nail that\nsupported a kettle-holder, and sat down on his bed to undress. He lay\nawake for a little while thinking of the wonderful possibilities of the\nmorrow, and thence he passed gloriously into the wonderland of dreams.\n\n\n\n\nXX. THE PURSUIT\n\nAnd now to tell of Mr. Hoopdriver, rising with the sun, vigilant,\nactive, wonderful, the practicable half of the lead-framed window stuck\nopen, ears alert, an eye flickering incessantly in the corner panes, in\noblique glances at the Angel front. Mrs. Wardor wanted him to have\nhis breakfast downstairs in her kitchen, but that would have meant\nabandoning the watch, and he held out strongly. The bicycle, cap-a-pie,\noccupied, under protest, a strategic position in the shop. He was\nexpectant by six in the morning. By nine horrible fears oppressed him\nthat his quest had escaped him, and he had to reconnoitre the Angel\nyard in order to satisfy himself. There he found the ostler (How are the\nmighty fallen in these decadent days!) brushing down the bicycles of the\nchase, and he returned relieved to Mrs. Wardor's premises. And about\nten they emerged, and rode quietly up the North Street. He watched them\nuntil they turned the corner of the post office, and then out into the\nroad and up after them in fine style! They went by the engine-house\nwhere the old stocks and the whipping posts are, and on to the\nChichester road, and he followed gallantly. So this great chase began.\n\nThey did not look round, and he kept them just within sight, getting\ndown if he chanced to draw closely upon them round a corner. By riding\nvigorously he kept quite conveniently near them, for they made but\nlittle hurry. He grew hot indeed, and his knees were a little stiff to\nbegin with, but that was all. There was little danger of losing them,\nfor a thin chalky dust lay upon the road, and the track of her tire was\nmilled like a shilling, and his was a chequered ribbon along the way.\nSo they rode by Cobden's monument and through the prettiest of villages,\nuntil at last the downs rose steeply ahead. There they stopped awhile at\nthe only inn in the place, and Mr. Hoopdriver took up a position which\ncommanded the inn door, and mopped his face and thirsted and smoked a\nRed Herring cigarette. They remained in the inn for some time. A number\nof chubby innocents returning home from school, stopped and formed a\nline in front of him, and watched him quietly but firmly for the space\nof ten minutes or so. \"Go away,\" said he, and they only seemed quietly\ninterested. He asked them all their names then, and they answered\nindistinct murmurs. He gave it up at last and became passive on his\ngate, and so at length they tired of him.\n\nThe couple under observation occupied the inn so long that Mr.\nHoopdriver at the thought of their possible employment hungered as well\nas thirsted. Clearly, they were lunching. It was a cloudless day, and\nthe sun at the meridian beat down upon the top of Mr. Hoopdriver's head,\na shower bath of sunshine, a huge jet of hot light. It made his head\nswim. At last they emerged, and the other man in brown looked back and\nsaw him. They rode on to the foot of the down, and dismounting began\nto push tediously up that long nearly vertical ascent of blinding white\nroad, Mr. Hoopdriver hesitated. It might take them twenty minutes to\nmount that. Beyond was empty downland perhaps for miles. He decided to\nreturn to the inn and snatch a hasty meal.\n\nAt the inn they gave him biscuits and cheese and a misleading pewter\nmeasure of sturdy ale, pleasant under the palate, cool in the throat,\nbut leaden in the legs, of a hot afternoon. He felt a man of substance\nas he emerged in the blinding sunshine, but even by the foot of the down\nthe sun was insisting again that his skull was too small for his brains.\nThe hill had gone steeper, the chalky road blazed like a magnesium\nlight, and his front wheel began an apparently incurable squeaking. He\nfelt as a man from Mars would feel if he were suddenly transferred to\nthis planet, about three times as heavy as he was wont to feel. The two\nlittle black figures had vanished over the forehead of the hill. \"The\ntracks'll be all right,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\nThat was a comforting reflection. It not only justified a slow progress\nup the hill, but at the crest a sprawl on the turf beside the road, to\ncontemplate the Weald from the south. In a matter of two days he had\ncrossed that spacious valley, with its frozen surge of green hills, its\nlittle villages and townships here and there, its copses and cornfields,\nits ponds and streams like jewelery of diamonds and silver glittering\nin the sun. The North Downs were hidden, far away beyond the Wealden\nHeights. Down below was the little village of Cocking, and half-way up\nthe hill, a mile perhaps to the right, hung a flock of sheep grazing\ntogether. Overhead an anxious peewit circled against the blue, and every\nnow and then emitted its feeble cry. Up here the heat was tempered by\na pleasant breeze. Mr. Hoopdriver was possessed by unreasonable\ncontentment; he lit himself a cigarette and lounged more comfortably.\nSurely the Sussex ale is made of the waters of Lethe, of poppies and\npleasant dreams. Drowsiness coiled insidiously about him.\n\nHe awoke with a guilty start, to find himself sprawling prone on the\nturf with his cap over one eye. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and realised\nthat he had slept. His head was still a trifle heavy. And the chase? He\njumped to his feet and stooped to pick up his overturned machine. He\nwhipped out his watch and saw that it was past two o'clock. \"Lord love\nus, fancy that!--But the tracks'll be all right,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver,\nwheeling his machine back to the chalky road. \"I must scorch till I\novertake them.\"\n\nHe mounted and rode as rapidly as the heat and a lingering lassitude\npermitted. Now and then he had to dismount to examine the surface where\nthe road forked. He enjoyed that rather. \"Trackin',\" he said aloud, and\ndecided in the privacy of his own mind that he had a wonderful instinct\nfor 'spoor.' So he came past Goodwood station and Lavant, and approached\nChichester towards four o'clock. And then came a terrible thing. In\nplaces the road became hard, in places were the crowded indentations of\na recent flock of sheep, and at last in the throat of the town cobbles\nand the stony streets branching east, west, north, and south, at a stone\ncross under the shadow of the cathedral the tracks vanished. \"O Cricky!\"\nsaid Mr. Hoopdriver, dismounting in dismay and standing agape. \"Dropped\nanything?\" said an inhabitant at the kerb. \"Yes,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver,\n\"I've lost the spoor,\" and walked upon his way, leaving the inhabitant\nmarvelling what part of a bicycle a spoor might be. Mr. Hoopdriver,\nabandoning tracking, began asking people if they had seen a Young Lady\nin Grey on a bicycle. Six casual people hadn't, and he began to feel the\ninquiry was conspicuous, and desisted. But what was to be done?\n\nHoopdriver was hot, tired, and hungry, and full of the first gnawings of\na monstrous remorse. He decided to get himself some tea and meat, and\nin the Royal George he meditated over the business in a melancholy\nframe enough. They had passed out of his world--vanished, and all his\nwonderful dreams of some vague, crucial interference collapsed like a\ncastle of cards. What a fool he had been not to stick to them like a\nleech! He might have thought! But there!--what WAS the good of that\nsort of thing now? He thought of her tears, of her helplessness, of\nthe bearing of the other man in brown, and his wrath and disappointment\nsurged higher. \"What CAN I do?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver aloud, bringing his\nfist down beside the teapot.\n\nWhat would Sherlock Holmes have done? Perhaps, after all, there might be\nsuch things as clues in the world, albeit the age of miracles was past.\nBut to look for a clue in this intricate network of cobbled streets, to\nexamine every muddy interstice! There was a chance by looking about\nand inquiry at the various inns. Upon that he began. But of course they\nmight have ridden straight through and scarcely a soul have marked them.\nAnd then came a positively brilliant idea. \"'Ow many ways are there out\nof Chichester?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. It was really equal to Sherlock\nHolmes--that. \"If they've made tracks, I shall find those tracks. If\nnot--they're in the town.\" He was then in East Street, and he started\nat once to make the circuit of the place, discovering incidentally that\nChichester is a walled city. In passing, he made inquiries at the Black\nSwan, the Crown, and the Red Lion Hotel. At six o'clock in the evening,\nhe was walking downcast, intent, as one who had dropped money, along\nthe road towards Bognor, kicking up the dust with his shoes and fretting\nwith disappointed pugnacity. A thwarted, crestfallen Hoopdriver it\nwas, as you may well imagine. And then suddenly there jumped upon his\nattention--a broad line ribbed like a shilling, and close beside it\none chequered, that ever and again split into two. \"Found!\" said Mr.\nHoopdriver and swung round on his heel at once, and back to the Royal\nGeorge, helter skelter, for the bicycle they were minding for him. The\nostler thought he was confoundedly imperious, considering his machine.\n\n\n\n\nXXI. AT BOGNOR\n\nThat seductive gentleman, Bechamel, had been working up to a crisis.\nHe had started upon this elopement in a vein of fine romance, immensely\nproud of his wickedness, and really as much in love as an artificial\noversoul can be, with Jessie. But either she was the profoundest of\ncoquettes or she had not the slightest element of Passion (with a large\nP) in her composition. It warred with all his ideas of himself and the\nfeminine mind to think that under their flattering circumstances she\nreally could be so vitally deficient. He found her persistent coolness,\nher more or less evident contempt for himself, exasperating in the\nhighest degree. He put it to himself that she was enough to provoke\na saint, and tried to think that was piquant and enjoyable, but the\nblisters on his vanity asserted themselves. The fact is, he was, under\nthis standing irritation, getting down to the natural man in himself for\nonce, and the natural man in himself, in spite of Oxford and the junior\nReviewers' Club, was a Palaeolithic creature of simple tastes and\nviolent methods. \"I'll be level with you yet,\" ran like a plough through\nthe soil of his thoughts.\n\nThen there was this infernal detective. Bechamel had told his wife\nhe was going to Davos to see Carter. To that he had fancied she\nwas reconciled, but how she would take this exploit was entirely\nproblematical. She was a woman of peculiar moral views, and she measured\nmarital infidelity largely by its proximity to herself. Out of her\nsight, and more particularly out of the sight of the other women of her\nset, vice of the recognised description was, perhaps, permissible to\nthose contemptible weaklings, men, but this was Evil on the High Roads.\nShe was bound to make a fuss, and these fusses invariably took the final\nform of a tightness of money for Bechamel. Albeit, and he felt it was\nheroic of him to resolve so, it was worth doing if it was to be done.\nHis imagination worked on a kind of matronly Valkyrie, and the noise of\npursuit and vengeance was in the air. The idyll still had the front of\nthe stage. That accursed detective, it seemed, had been thrown off the\nscent, and that, at any rate, gave a night's respite. But things must be\nbrought to an issue forthwith.\n\nBy eight o'clock in the evening, in a little dining-room in the Vicuna\nHotel, Bognor, the crisis had come, and Jessie, flushed and angry in the\nface and with her heart sinking, faced him again for her last struggle\nwith him. He had tricked her this time, effectually, and luck had been\non his side. She was booked as Mrs. Beaumont. Save for her refusal to\nenter their room, and her eccentricity of eating with unwashed hands,\nshe had so far kept up the appearances of things before the waiter.\nBut the dinner was grim enough. Now in turn she appealed to his better\nnature and made extravagant statements of her plans to fool him.\n\nHe was white and vicious by this time, and his anger quivered through\nhis pose of brilliant wickedness.\n\n\"I will go to the station,\" she said. \"I will go back--\"\n\n\"The last train for anywhere leaves at 7.42.\"\n\n\"I will appeal to the police--\"\n\n\"You don't know them.\"\n\n\"I will tell these hotel people.\"\n\n\"They will turn you out of doors. You're in such a thoroughly false\nposition now. They don't understand unconventionality, down here.\"\n\nShe stamped her foot. \"If I wander about the streets all night--\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"You who have never been out alone after dusk? Do you know what the\nstreets of a charming little holiday resort are like--\"\n\n\"I don't care,\" she said. \"I can go to the clergyman here.\"\n\n\"He's a charming man. Unmarried. And men are really more alike than you\nthink. And anyhow--\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"How CAN you explain the last two nights to anyone now? The mischief is\ndone, Jessie.\"\n\n\"You CUR,\" she said, and suddenly put her hand to her breast. He thought\nshe meant to faint, but she stood, with the colour gone from her face.\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"I love you.\"\n\n\"Love!\" said she.\n\n\"Yes--love.\"\n\n\"There are ways yet,\" she said, after a pause.\n\n\"Not for you. You are too full of life and hope yet for, what is\nit?--not the dark arch nor the black flowing river. Don't you think of\nit. You'll only shirk it when the moment comes, and turn it all into\ncomedy.\"\n\nShe turned round abruptly from him and stood looking out across the\nparade at the shining sea over which the afterglow of day fled before\nthe rising moon. He maintained his attitude. The blinds were still up,\nfor she had told the waiter not to draw them. There was silence for some\nmoments.\n\nAt last he spoke in as persuasive a voice as he could summon. \"Take it\nsensibly, Jessie. Why should we, who have so much in common, quarrel\ninto melodrama? I swear I love you. You are all that is bright and\ndesirable to me. I am stronger than you, older; man to your woman. To\nfind YOU too--conventional!\"\n\nShe looked at him over her shoulder, and he noticed with a twinge of\ndelight how her little chin came out beneath the curve of her cheek.\n\n\"MAN!\" she said. \"Man to MY woman! Do MEN lie? Would a MAN use his five\nand thirty years' experience to outwit a girl of seventeen? Man to my\nwoman indeed! That surely is the last insult!\"\n\n\"Your repartee is admirable, Jessie. I should say they do, though--all\nthat and more also when their hearts were set on such a girl as\nyourself. For God's sake drop this shrewishness! Why should you be\nso--difficult to me? Here am I with MY reputation, MY career, at your\nfeet. Look here, Jessie--on my honour, I will marry you--\"\n\n\"God forbid,\" she said, so promptly that she never learnt he had a wife,\neven then. It occurred to him then for the first time, in the flash of\nher retort, that she did not know he was married.\n\n\"'Tis only a pre-nuptial settlement,\" he said, following that hint.\n\nHe paused.\n\n\"You must be sensible. The thing's your own doing. Come out on the beach\nnow the beach here is splendid, and the moon will soon be high.\"\n\n\"_I_ WON'T\" she said, stamping her foot.\n\n\"Well, well--\"\n\n\"Oh! leave me alone. Let me think--\"\n\n\"Think,\" he said, \"if you want to. It's your cry always. But you can't\nsave yourself by thinking, my dear girl. You can't save yourself in any\nway now. If saving it is--this parsimony--\"\n\n\"Oh, go--go.\"\n\n\"Very well. I will go. I will go and smoke a cigar. And think of you,\ndear.... But do you think I should do all this if I did not care?\"\n\n\"Go,\" she whispered, without glancing round. She continued to stare\nout of the window. He stood looking at her for a moment, with a strange\nlight in his eyes. He made a step towards her. \"I HAVE you,\", he said.\n\"You are mine. Netted--caught. But mine.\" He would have gone up to her\nand laid his hand upon her, but he did not dare to do that yet. \"I have\nyou in my hand,\" he said, \"in my power. Do you hear--POWER!\"\n\nShe remained impassive. He stared at her for half a minute, and then,\nwith a superb gesture that was lost upon her, went to the door. Surely\nthe instinctive abasement of her sex before Strength was upon his side.\nHe told himself that his battle was won. She heard the handle move and\nthe catch click as the door closed behind him.\n\n\n\n\nXXII.\n\nAnd now without in the twilight behold Mr. Hoopdriver, his cheeks\nhot, his eye bright! His brain is in a tumult. The nervous, obsequious\nHoopdriver, to whom I introduced you some days since, has undergone a\nwonderful change. Ever since he lost that 'spoor' in Chichester, he has\nbeen tormented by the most horrible visions of the shameful insults that\nmay be happening. The strangeness of new surroundings has been working\nto strip off the habitual servile from him. Here was moonlight rising\nover the memory of a red sunset, dark shadows and glowing orange lamps,\nbeauty somewhere mysteriously rapt away from him, tangible wrong in a\nbrown suit and an unpleasant face, flouting him. Mr. Hoopdriver for\nthe time, was in the world of Romance and Knight-errantry, divinely\nforgetful of his social position or hers; forgetting, too, for the time\nany of the wretched timidities that had tied him long since behind the\ncounter in his proper place. He was angry and adventurous. It was all\nabout him, this vivid drama he had fallen into, and it was eluding him.\nHe was far too grimly in earnest to pick up that lost thread and make a\nplay of it now. The man was living. He did not pose when he alighted at\nthe coffee tavern even, nor when he made his hasty meal.\n\nAs Bechamel crossed from the Vicuna towards the esplanade, Hoopdriver,\ndisappointed and exasperated, came hurrying round the corner from the\nTemperance Hotel. At the sight of Bechamel, his heart jumped, and the\ntension of his angry suspense exploded into, rather than gave place to,\nan excited activity of mind. They were at the Vicuna, and she was there\nnow alone. It was the occasion he sought. But he would give Chance no\nchance against him. He went back round the corner, sat down on the seat,\nand watched Bechamel recede into the dimness up the esplanade, before he\ngot up and walked into the hotel entrance. \"A lady cyclist in grey,\" he\nasked for, and followed boldly on the waiter's heels. The door of the\ndining-room was opening before he felt a qualm. And then suddenly he was\nnearly minded to turn and run for it, and his features seemed to him to\nbe convulsed.\n\nShe turned with a start, and looked at him with something between terror\nand hope in her eyes.\n\n\"Can I--have a few words--with you, alone?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver,\ncontrolling his breath with difficulty. She hesitated, and then motioned\nthe waiter to withdraw.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver watched the door shut. He had intended to step out into\nthe middle of the room, fold his arms and say, \"You are in trouble. I\nam a Friend. Trust me.\" Instead of which he stood panting and then spoke\nwith sudden familiarity, hastily, guiltily: \"Look here. I don't know\nwhat the juice is up, but I think there's something wrong. Excuse my\nintruding--if it isn't so. I'll do anything you like to help you out of\nthe scrape--if you're in one. That's my meaning, I believe. What can I\ndo? I would do anything to help you.\"\n\nHer brow puckered, as she watched him make, with infinite emotion,\nthis remarkable speech. \"YOU!\" she said. She was tumultuously weighing\npossibilities in her mind, and he had scarcely ceased when she had made\nher resolve.\n\nShe stepped a pace forward. \"You are a gentleman,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Can I trust you?\"\n\nShe did not wait for his assurance. \"I must leave this hotel at once.\nCome here.\"\n\nShe took his arm and led him to the window.\n\n\"You can just see the gate. It is still open. Through that are our\nbicycles. Go down, get them out, and I will come down to you. Dare you?\n\n\"Get your bicycle out in the road?\"\n\n\"Both. Mine alone is no good. At once. Dare you?\"\n\n\"Which way?\"\n\n\"Go out by the front door and round. I will follow in one minute.\"\n\n\"Right!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, and went.\n\nHe had to get those bicycles. Had he been told to go out and kill\nBechamel he would have done it. His head was a maelstrom now. He walked\nout of the hotel, along the front, and into the big, black-shadowed\ncoach yard. He looked round. There were no bicycles visible. Then a\nman emerged from the dark, a short man in a short, black, shiny jacket.\nHoopdriver was caught. He made no attempt to turn and run for it. \"I've\nbeen giving your machines a wipe over, sir,\" said the man, recognising\nthe suit, and touching his cap. Hoopdriver's intelligence now was a\nsoaring eagle; he swooped on the situation at once. \"That's right,\" he\nsaid, and added, before the pause became marked, \"Where is mine? I want\nto look at the chain.\"\n\nThe man led him into an open shed, and went fumbling for a lantern.\nHoopdriver moved the lady's machine out of his way to the door, and then\nlaid hands on the man's machine and wheeled it out of the shed into the\nyard. The gate stood open and beyond was the pale road and a clump of\ntrees black in the twilight. He stooped and examined the chain with\ntrembling fingers. How was it to be done? Something behind the gate\nseemed to flutter. The man must be got rid of anyhow.\n\n\"I say,\" said Hoopdriver, with an inspiration, \"can you get me a\nscrewdriver?\"\n\nThe man simply walked across the shed, opened and shut a box, and came\nup to the kneeling Hoopdriver with a screwdriver in his hand. Hoopdriver\nfelt himself a lost man. He took the screwdriver with a tepid \"Thanks,\"\nand incontinently had another inspiration.\n\n\"I say,\" he said again.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"This is miles too big.\"\n\nThe man lit the lantern, brought it up to Hoopdriver and put it down on\nthe ground. \"Want a smaller screwdriver?\" he said.\n\nHoopdriver had his handkerchief out and sneezed a prompt ATICHEW. It is\nthe orthodox thing when you wish to avoid recognition. \"As small as you\nhave,\" he said, out of his pocket handkerchief.\n\n\"I ain't got none smaller than that,\" said the ostler.\n\n\"Won't do, really,\" said Hoopdriver, still wallowing in his\nhandkerchief.\n\n\"I'll see wot they got in the 'ouse, if you like, sir,\" said the man.\n\"If you would,\" said Hoopdriver. And as the man's heavily nailed boots\nwent clattering down the yard, Hoopdriver stood up, took a noiseless\nstep to the lady's machine, laid trembling hands on its handle and\nsaddle, and prepared for a rush.\n\nThe scullery door opened momentarily and sent a beam of warm, yellow\nlight up the road, shut again behind the man, and forthwith Hoopdriver\nrushed the machines towards the gate. A dark grey form came fluttering\nto meet him. \"Give me this,\" she said, \"and bring yours.\"\n\nHe passed the thing to her, touched her hand in the darkness, ran back,\nseized Bechamel's machine, and followed.\n\nThe yellow light of the scullery door suddenly flashed upon the cobbles\nagain. It was too late now to do anything but escape. He heard the\nostler shout behind him, and came into the road. She was up and dim\nalready. He got into the saddle without a blunder. In a moment the\nostler was in the gateway with a full-throated \"HI! sir! That ain't\nallowed;\" and Hoopdriver was overtaking the Young Lady in Grey. For\nsome moments the earth seemed alive with shouts of, \"Stop 'em!\" and the\nshadows with ambuscades of police. The road swept round, and they were\nriding out of sight of the hotel, and behind dark hedges, side by side.\n\nShe was weeping with excitement as he overtook her. \"Brave,\" she said,\n\"brave!\" and he ceased to feel like a hunted thief. He looked over\nhis shoulder and about him, and saw that they were already out of\nBognor--for the Vicuna stands at the very westernmost extremity of the\nsea front--and riding on a fair wide road.\n\n\n\n\nXXIII.\n\nThe ostler (being a fool) rushed violently down the road vociferating\nafter them. Then he returned panting to the Vicuna Hotel, and finding\na group of men outside the entrance, who wanted to know what was UP,\nstopped to give them the cream of the adventure. That gave the fugitives\nfive minutes. Then pushing breathlessly into the bar, he had to make it\nclear to the barmaid what the matter was, and the 'gov'nor' being out,\nthey spent some more precious time wondering 'what--EVER' was to be\ndone! in which the two customers returning from outside joined\nwith animation. There were also moral remarks and other irrelevant\ncontributions. There were conflicting ideas of telling the police and\npursuing the flying couple on a horse. That made ten minutes. Then\nStephen, the waiter, who had shown Hoopdriver up, came down and lit\nwonderful lights and started quite a fresh discussion by the simple\nquestion \"WHICH?\" That turned ten minutes into a quarter of an hour.\nAnd in the midst of this discussion, making a sudden and awestricken\nsilence, appeared Bechamel in the hall beyond the bar, walked with a\nresolute air to the foot of the staircase, and passed out of sight.\nYou conceive the backward pitch of that exceptionally shaped cranium?\nIncredulous eyes stared into one another's in the bar, as his paces,\nmuffled by the stair carpet, went up to the landing, turned, reached the\npassage and walked into the dining-room overhead.\n\n\"It wasn't that one at all, miss,\" said the ostler, \"I'd SWEAR\"\n\n\"Well, that's Mr. Beaumont,\" said the barmaid, \"--anyhow.\"\n\nTheir conversation hung comatose in the air, switched up by Bechamel.\nThey listened together. His feet stopped. Turned. Went out of the\ndiningroom. Down the passage to the bedroom. Stopped again.\n\n\"Poor chap!\" said the barmaid. \"She's a wicked woman!\"\n\n\"Sssh!\" said Stephen.\n\nAfter a pause Bechamel went back to the dining-room. They heard a chair\ncreak under him. Interlude of conversational eyebrows.\n\n\"I'm going up,\" said Stephen, \"to break the melancholy news to him.\"\n\nBechamel looked up from a week-old newspaper as, without knocking,\nStephen entered. Bechamel's face suggested a different expectation. \"Beg\npardon, sir,\" said Stephen, with a diplomatic cough.\n\n\"Well?\" said Bechamel, wondering suddenly if Jessie had kept some of her\nthreats. If so, he was in for an explanation. But he had it ready. She\nwas a monomaniac. \"Leave me alone with her,\" he would say; \"I know how\nto calm her.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Beaumont,\" said Stephen.\n\n\"WELL?\"\n\n\"Has gone.\"\n\nHe rose with a fine surprise. \"Gone!\" he said with a half laugh.\n\n\"Gone, sir. On her bicycle.\"\n\n\"On her bicycle! Why?\"\n\n\"She went, sir, with Another Gentleman.\"\n\nThis time Bechamel was really startled. \"An--other Gentlemen! WHO?\"\n\n\"Another gentleman in brown, sir. Went into the yard, sir, got out the\ntwo bicycles, sir, and went off, sir--about twenty minutes ago.\"\n\nBechamel stood with his eyes round and his knuckle on his hips. Stephen,\nwatching him with immense enjoyment, speculated whether this abandoned\nhusband would weep or curse, or rush off at once in furious pursuit. But\nas yet he seemed merely stunned.\n\n\"Brown clothes?\" he said. \"And fairish?\"\n\n\"A little like yourself, sir--in the dark. The ostler, sir, Jim Duke--\"\n\nBechamel laughed awry. Then, with infinite fervour, he said--But let us\nput in blank cartridge--he said, \"------!\"\n\n\"I might have thought!\"\n\nHe flung himself into the armchair.\n\n\"Damn her,\" said Bechamel, for all the world like a common man. \"I'll\nchuck this infernal business! They've gone, eigh?\"\n\n\"Yessir.\"\n\n\"Well, let 'em GO,\" said Bechamel, making a memorable saying. \"Let 'em\nGO. Who cares? And I wish him luck. And bring me some Bourbon as fast as\nyou can, there's a good chap. I'll take that, and then I'll have another\nlook round Bognor before I turn in.\"\n\nStephen was too surprised to say anything but \"Bourbon, sir?\"\n\n\"Go on,\" said Bechamel. \"Damn you!\"\n\nStephen's sympathies changed at once. \"Yessir,\" he murmured, fumbling\nfor the door handle, and left the room, marvelling. Bechamel, having in\nthis way satisfied his sense of appearances, and comported himself as a\nPagan should, so soon as the waiter's footsteps had passed, vented the\ncream of his feelings in a stream of blasphemous indecency. Whether his\nwife or HER stepmother had sent the detective, SHE had evidently gone\noff with him, and that little business was over. And he was here,\nstranded and sold, an ass, and as it were, the son of many generations\nof asses. And his only ray of hope was that it seemed more probable,\nafter all, that the girl had escaped through her stepmother. In\nwhich case the business might be hushed up yet, and the evil hour of\nexplanation with his wife indefinitely postponed. Then abruptly the\nimage of that lithe figure in grey knickerbockers went frisking across\nhis mind again, and he reverted to his blasphemies. He started up in a\ngusty frenzy with a vague idea of pursuit, and incontinently sat down\nagain with a concussion that stirred the bar below to its depths. He\nbanged the arms of the chair with his fist, and swore again. \"Of all the\naccursed fools that were ever spawned,\" he was chanting, \"I, Bechamel--\"\nwhen with an abrupt tap and prompt opening of the door, Stephen entered\nwith the Bourbon.\n\n\n\n\nXXIV. THE MOONLIGHT RIDE\n\nAnd so the twenty minutes' law passed into an infinity. We leave the\nwicked Bechamel clothing himself with cursing as with a garment,--the\nwretched creature has already sufficiently sullied our modest but\ntruthful pages,--we leave the eager little group in the bar of the\nVicuna Hotel, we leave all Bognor as we have left all Chichester and\nMidhurst and Haslemere and Guildford and Ripley and Putney, and follow\nthis dear fool of a Hoopdriver of ours and his Young Lady in Grey out\nupon the moonlight road. How they rode! How their hearts beat together\nand their breath came fast, and how every shadow was anticipation and\nevery noise pursuit! For all that flight Mr. Hoopdriver was in the world\nof Romance. Had a policeman intervened because their lamps were not lit,\nHoopdriver had cut him down and ridden on, after the fashion of a hero\nborn. Had Bechamel arisen in the way with rapiers for a duel, Hoopdriver\nhad fought as one to whom Agincourt was a reality and drapery a dream.\nIt was Rescue, Elopement, Glory! And she by the side of him! He had seen\nher face in shadow, with the morning sunlight tangled in her hair, he\nhad seen her sympathetic with that warm light in her face, he had seen\nher troubled and her eyes bright with tears. But what light is there\nlighting a face like hers, to compare with the soft glamour of the\nmidsummer moon?\n\nThe road turned northward, going round through the outskirts of Bognor,\nin one place dark and heavy under a thick growth of trees, then amidst\nvillas again, some warm and lamplit, some white and sleeping in the\nmoonlight; then between hedges, over which they saw broad wan meadows\nshrouded in a low-lying mist. They scarcely heeded whither they rode at\nfirst, being only anxious to get away, turning once westward when the\nspire of Chichester cathedral rose suddenly near them out of the dewy\nnight, pale and intricate and high. They rode, speaking little, just a\nrare word now and then, at a turning, at a footfall, at a roughness in\nthe road.\n\nShe seemed to be too intent upon escape to give much thought to him,\nbut after the first tumult of the adventure, as flight passed into mere\nsteady ridin@@ his mind became an enormous appreciation of the position.\nThe night was a warm white silence save for the subtile running of their\nchains. He looked sideways at her as she sat beside him with her ankles\ngracefully ruling the treadles. Now the road turned westward, and she\nwas a dark grey outline against the shimmer of the moon; and now they\nfaced northwards, and the soft cold light passed caressingly over her\nhair and touched her brow and cheek.\n\nThere is a magic quality in moonshine; it touches all that is sweet\nand beautiful, and the rest of the night is hidden. It has created\nthe fairies, whom the sunlight kills, and fairyland rises again in our\nhearts at the sight of it, the voices of the filmy route, and their\nfaint, soul-piercing melodies. By the moonlight every man, dull clod\nthough he be by day, tastes something of Endymion, takes something of\nthe youth and strength of Enidymion, and sees the dear white goddess\nshining at him from his Lady's eyes. The firm substantial daylight\nthings become ghostly and elusive, the hills beyond are a sea of\nunsubstantial texture, the world a visible spirit, the spiritual within\nus rises out of its darkness, loses something of its weight and body,\nand swims up towards heaven. This road that was a mere rutted white\ndust, hot underfoot, blinding to the eye, is now a soft grey silence,\nwith the glitter of a crystal grain set starlike in its silver here\nand there. Overhead, riding serenely through the spacious blue, is the\nmother of the silence, she who has spiritualised the world, alone save\nfor two attendant steady shining stars. And in silence under her benign\ninfluence, under the benediction of her light, rode our two wanderers\nside by side through the transfigured and transfiguring night.\n\nNowhere was the moon shining quite so brightly as in Mr. Hoopdriver's\nskull. At the turnings of the road he made his decisions with an air of\nprofound promptitude (and quite haphazard). \"The Right,\" he would say.\nOr again \"The Left,\" as one who knew. So it was that in the space of an\nhour they came abruptly down a little lane, full tilt upon the sea. Grey\nbeach to the right of them and to the left, and a little white cottage\nfast asleep inland of a sleeping fishing-boat. \"Hullo!\" said Mr.\nHoopdriver, sotto voce. They dismounted abruptly. Stunted oaks and\nthorns rose out of the haze of moonlight that was tangled in the hedge\non either side.\n\n\"You are safe,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, sweeping off his cap with an air\nand bowing courtly.\n\n\"Where are we?\"\n\n\"SAFE.\"\n\n\"But WHERE?\"\n\n\"Chichester Harbour.\" He waved his arm seaward as though it was a goal.\n\n\"Do you think they will follow us?\"\n\n\"We have turned and turned again.\"\n\nIt seemed to Hoopdriver that he heard her sob. She stood dimly there,\nholding her machine, and he, holding his, could go no nearer to her to\nsee if she sobbed for weeping or for want of breath. \"What are we to do\nnow?\" her voice asked.\n\n\"Are you tired?\" he asked.\n\n\"I will do what has to be done.\"\n\nThe two black figures in the broken light were silent for a space. \"Do\nyou know,\" she said, \"I am not afraid of you. I am sure you are honest\nto me. And I do not even know your name!\"\n\nHe was taken with a sudden shame of his homely patronymic. \"It's an ugly\nname,\" he said. \"But you are right in trusting me. I would--I would do\nanything for you.... This is nothing.\"\n\nShe caught at her breath. She did not care to ask why. But compared\nwith Bechamel!--\"We take each other on trust,\" she said. \"Do you want to\nknow--how things are with me?\"\n\n\"That man,\" she went on, after the assent of his listening silence,\n\"promised to help and protect me. I was unhappy at home--never mind\nwhy. A stepmother--Idle, unoccupied, hindered, cramped, that is\nenough, perhaps. Then he came into my life, and talked to me of art\nand literature, and set my brain on fire. I wanted to come out into the\nworld, to be a human being--not a thing in a hutch. And he--\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Hoopdriver.\n\n\"And now here I am--\"\n\n\"I will do anything,\" said Hoopdriver.\n\nShe thought. \"You cannot imagine my stepmother. No! I could not describe\nher--\"\n\n\"I am entirely at your service. I will help you with all my power.\"\n\n\"I have lost an Illusion and found a Knight-errant.\" She spoke of\nBechamel as the Illusion.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver felt flattered. But he had no adequate answer.\n\n\"I'm thinking,\" he said, full of a rapture of protective responsibility,\n\"what we had best be doing. You are tired, you know. And we can't\nwander all night--after the day we've had.\"\n\n\"That was Chichester we were near?\" she asked.\n\n\"If,\" he meditated, with a tremble in his voice, \"you would make ME your\nbrother, MISS BEAUMONT.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"We could stop there together--\"\n\nShe took a minute to answer. \"I am going to light these lamps,\" said\nHoopdriver. He bent down to his own, and struck a match on his shoe. She\nlooked at his face in its light, grave and intent. How could she ever\nhave thought him common or absurd?\n\n\"But you must tell me your name--brother,\" she said,\n\n\"Er--Carrington,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, after a momentary pause. Who\nwould be Hoopdriver on a night like this?\n\n\"But the Christian name?\"\n\n\"Christian name? MY Christian name. Well--Chris.\" He snapped his lamp\nand stood up. \"If you will hold my machine, I will light yours,\" he\nsaid.\n\nShe came round obediently and took his machine, and for a moment they\nstood face to face. \"My name, brother Chris,\" she said, \"is Jessie.\"\n\nHe looked into her eyes, and his excitement seemed arrested. \"JESSIE,\"\nhe repeated slowly. The mute emotion of his face affected her strangely.\nShe had to speak. \"It's not such a very wonderful name, is it?\" she\nsaid, with a laugh to break the intensity.\n\nHe opened his mouth and shut it again, and, with a sudden wincing of his\nfeatures, abruptly turned and bent down to open the lantern in front of\nher machine. She looked down at him, almost kneeling in front of\nher, with an unreasonable approbation in her eyes. It was, as I have\nindicated, the hour and season of the full moon.\n\n\n\n\nXXV.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver conducted the rest of that night's journey with the same\nconfident dignity as before, and it was chiefly by good luck and the\nfact that most roads about a town converge thereupon, that Chichester\nwas at last attained. It seemed at first as though everyone had gone to\nbed, but the Red Hotel still glowed yellow and warm. It was the first\ntime Hoopdriver bad dared the mysteries of a 'first-class' hotel.' But\nthat night he was in the mood to dare anything.\n\n\"So you found your Young Lady at last,\" said the ostler of the Red\nHotel; for it chanced he was one of those of whom Hoopdriver had made\ninquiries in the afternoon.\n\n\"Quite a misunderstanding,\" said Hoopdriver, with splendid readiness.\n\"My sister had gone to Bognor But I brought her back here. I've took a\nfancy to this place. And the moonlight's simply dee-vine.\"\n\n\"We've had supper, thenks, and we're tired,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"I\nsuppose you won't take anything,--Jessie?\"\n\nThe glory of having her, even as a sister! and to call her Jessie like\nthat! But he carried it off splendidly, as he felt himself bound to\nadmit. \"Good-night, Sis,\" he said, \"and pleasant dreams. I'll just 'ave\na look at this paper before I turn in.\" But this was living indeed! he\ntold himself.\n\nSo gallantly did Mr. Hoopdriver comport himself up to the very edge of\nthe Most Wonderful Day of all. It had begun early, you will remember,\nwith a vigil in a little sweetstuff shop next door to the Angel at\nMidhurst. But to think of all the things that had happened since then!\nHe caught himself in the middle of a yawn, pulled out his watch, saw the\ntime was halfpast eleven, and marched off, with a fine sense of heroism,\nbedward.\n\n\n\n\nXXVI. THE SURBITON INTERLUDE\n\nAnd here, thanks to the glorious institution of sleep, comes a break in\nthe narrative again. These absurd young people are safely tucked away\nnow, their heads full of glowing nonsense, indeed, but the course of\nevents at any rate is safe from any fresh developments through their\nactivities for the next eight hours or more. They are both sleeping\nhealthily you will perhaps be astonished to hear. Here is the girl--what\ngirls are coming to nowadays only Mrs. Lynn Linton can tell!--in company\nwith an absolute stranger, of low extraction and uncertain accent,\nunchaperoned and unabashed; indeed, now she fancies she is safe, she is,\nif anything, a little proud of her own share in these transactions. Then\nthis Mr. Hoopdriver of yours, roseate idiot that he is! is in illegal\npossession of a stolen bicycle, a stolen young lady, and two stolen\nnames, established with them in an hotel that is quite beyond his means,\nand immensely proud of himself in a somnolent way for these incomparable\nfollies. There are occasions when a moralising novelist can merely wring\nhis hands and leave matters to take their course. For all Hoopdriver\nknows or cares he may be locked up the very first thing to-morrow\nmorning for the rape of the cycle. Then in Bognor, let alone that\nmelancholy vestige, Bechamel (with whom our dealings are, thank\nGoodness! over), there is a Coffee Tavern with a steak Mr. Hoopdriver\nordered, done to a cinder long ago, his American-cloth parcel in a\nbedroom, and his own proper bicycle, by way of guarantee, carefully\nlocked up in the hayloft. To-morrow he will be a Mystery, and they will\nbe looking for his body along the sea front. And so far we have never\ngiven a glance at the desolate home in Surbiton, familiar to you no\ndoubt through the medium of illustrated interviews, where the unhappy\nstepmother--\n\nThat stepmother, it must be explained, is quite well known to you.\nThat is a little surprise I have prepared for you. She is 'Thomas\nPlantagenet,' the gifted authoress of that witty and daring book, \"A\nSoul Untrammelled,\" and quite an excellent woman in her way,--only it\nis such a crooked way. Her real name is Milton. She is a widow and\na charming one, only ten years older than Jessie, and she is always\ncareful to dedicate her more daring works to the 'sacred memory of my\nhusband' to show that there's nothing personal, you know, in the matter.\nConsidering her literary reputation (she was always speaking of herself\nas one I martyred for truth,' because the critics advertised her\nwritten indecorums in column long 'slates'),--considering her literary\nreputation, I say, she was one of the most respectable women it is\npossible to imagine. She furnished correctly, dressed correctly, had\nsevere notions of whom she might meet, went to church, and even at times\ntook the sacrament in some esoteric spirit. And Jessie she brought up so\ncarefully that she never even let her read \"A Soul Untrammelled.\" Which,\ntherefore, naturally enough, Jessie did, and went on from that to a\nfeast of advanced literature. Mrs. Milton not only brought up Jessie\ncarefully, but very slowly, so that at seventeen she was still a clever\nschoolgirl (as you have seen her) and quite in the background of\nthe little literary circle of unimportant celebrities which 'Thomas\nPlantagenet' adorned. Mrs. Milton knew Bechamel's reputation of being a\ndangerous man; but then bad men are not bad women, and she let him come\nto her house to show she was not afraid--she took no account of Jessie.\nWhen the elopement came, therefore, it was a double disappointment\nto her, for she perceived his hand by a kind of instinct. She did the\ncorrect thing. The correct thing, as you know, is to take hansom cabs,\nregardless of expense, and weep and say you do not know WHAT to do,\nround the circle of your confidential friends. She could not have ridden\nnor wept more had Jessie been her own daughter--she showed the properest\nspirit. And she not only showed it, but felt it.\n\nMrs. Milton, as a successful little authoress and still more successful\nwidow of thirty-two,--\"Thomas Plantagenet is a charming woman,\"\nher reviewers used to write invariably, even if they spoke ill of\nher,--found the steady growth of Jessie into womanhood an unmitigated\nnuisance and had been willing enough to keep her in the background.\nAnd Jessie--who had started this intercourse at fourteen with abstract\nobjections to stepmothers--had been active enough in resenting this.\nIncreasing rivalry and antagonism had sprung up between them, until\nthey could engender quite a vivid hatred from a dropped hairpin or\nthe cutting of a book with a sharpened knife. There is very little\ndeliberate wickedness in the world. The stupidity of our selfishness\ngives much the same results indeed, but in the ethical laboratory it\nshows a different nature. And when the disaster came, Mrs. Milton's\nremorse for their gradual loss of sympathy and her share in the losing\nof it, was genuine enough.\n\nYou may imagine the comfort she got from her friends, and how West\nKensington and Notting Hill and Hampstead, the literary suburbs, those\ndecent penitentiaries of a once Bohemian calling, hummed with the\nbusiness, Her 'Men'--as a charming literary lady she had, of course, an\norganised corps--were immensely excited, and were sympathetic;\nhelpfully energetic, suggestive, alert, as their ideals of their various\ndispositions required them to be. \"Any news of Jessie?\" was the pathetic\nopening of a dozen melancholy but interesting conversations. To her Men\nshe was not perhaps so damp as she was to her women friends, but in a\nquiet way she was even more touching. For three days, Wednesday that is,\nThursday, and Friday, nothing was heard of the fugitives. It was known\nthat Jessie, wearing a patent costume with buttonup skirts, and mounted\non a diamond frame safety with Dunlops, and a loofah covered saddle,\nhad ridden forth early in the morning, taking with her about two pounds\nseven shillings in money, and a grey touring case packed, and there,\nsave for a brief note to her stepmother,--a declaration of independence,\nit was said, an assertion of her Ego containing extensive and very\nannoying quotations from \"A Soul Untrammelled,\" and giving no definite\nintimation of her plans--knowledge ceased. That note was shown to few,\nand then only in the strictest confidence.\n\nBut on Friday evening late came a breathless Man Friend, Widgery, a\ncorrespondent of hers, who had heard of her trouble among the first. He\nhad been touring in Sussex,--his knapsack was still on his back,--and\nhe testified hurriedly that at a place called Midhurst, in the bar of an\nhotel called the Angel, he had heard from a barmaid a vivid account of\na Young Lady in Grey. Descriptions tallied. But who was the man in\nbrown? \"The poor, misguided girl! I must go to her at once,\" she said,\nchoking, and rising with her hand to her heart.\n\n\"It's impossible to-night. There are no more trains. I looked on my\nway.\"\n\n\"A mother's love,\" she said. \"I bear her THAT.\"\n\n\"I know you do.\" He spoke with feeling, for no one admired his\nphotographs of scenery more than Mrs. Milton. \"It's more than she\ndeserves.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't speak unkindly of her! She has been misled.\"\n\nIt was really very friendly of him. He declared he was only sorry his\nnews ended there. Should he follow them, and bring her back? He had come\nto her because he knew of her anxiety. \"It is GOOD of you,\" she said,\nand quite instinctively took and pressed his hand. \"And to think of that\npoor girl--tonight! It's dreadful.\" She looked into the fire that she\nhad lit when he came in, the warm light fell upon her dark purple dress,\nand left her features in a warm shadow. She looked such a slight, frail\nthing to be troubled so. \"We must follow her.\" Her resolution seemed\nmagnificent. \"I have no one to go with me.\"\n\n\"He must marry her,\" said the man.\n\n\"She has no friends. We have no one. After all--Two women.--So\nhelpless.\"\n\nAnd this fair-haired little figure was the woman that people who knew\nher only from her books, called bold, prurient even! Simply because\nshe was great-hearted--intellectual. He was overcome by the unspeakable\npathos of her position.\n\n\"Mrs. Milton,\" he said. \"Hetty!\"\n\nShe glanced at him. The overflow was imminent. \"Not now,\" she said, \"not\nnow. I must find her first.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said with intense emotion. (He was one of those big, fat men\nwho feel deeply.) \"But let me help you. At least let me help you.\"\n\n\"But can you spare time?\" she said. \"For ME.\"\n\n\"For you--\"\n\n\"But what can I do? what can WE do?\"\n\n\"Go to Midhurst. Follow her on. Trace her. She was there on Thursday\nnight, last night. She cycled out of the town. Courage!\" he said. \"We\nwill save her yet!\"\n\nShe put out her hand and pressed his again.\n\n\"Courage!\" he repeated, finding it so well received.\n\nThere were alarms and excursions without. She turned her back to the\nfire, and he sat down suddenly in the big armchair, which suited his\ndimensions admirably. Then the door opened, and the girl showed in\nDangle, who looked curiously from one to the other. There was emotion\nhere, he had heard the armchair creaking, and Mrs. Milton, whose face\nwas flushed, displayed a suspicious alacrity to explain. \"You, too,\" she\nsaid, \"are one of my good friends. And we have news of her at last.\"\n\nIt was decidedly an advantage to Widgery, but Dangle determined to show\nhimself a man of resource. In the end he, too, was accepted for the\nMidhurst Expedition, to the intense disgust of Widgery; and young\nPhipps, a callow youth of few words, faultless collars, and fervent\ndevotion, was also enrolled before the evening was out. They would scour\nthe country, all three of them. She appeared to brighten up a little,\nbut it was evident she was profoundly touched. She did not know what\nshe had done to merit such friends. Her voice broke a little, she moved\ntowards the door, and young Phipps, who was a youth of action rather\nthan of words, sprang and opened it--proud to be first.\n\n\"She is sorely troubled,\" said Dangle to Widgery. \"We must do what we\ncan for her.\"\n\n\"She is a wonderful woman,\" said Dangle. \"So subtle, so intricate, so\nmany faceted. She feels this deeply.\"\n\nYoung Phipps said nothing, but he felt the more.\n\nAnd yet they say the age of chivalry is dead!\n\nBut this is only an Interlude, introduced to give our wanderers time to\nrefresh themselves by good, honest sleeping. For the present, therefore,\nwe will not concern ourselves with the starting of the Rescue Party,\nnor with Mrs. Milton's simple but becoming grey dress, with the healthy\nWidgery's Norfolk jacket and thick boots, with the slender Dangle's\nenergetic bearing, nor with the wonderful chequerings that set off the\nlegs of the golf-suited Phipps. They are after us. In a little while\nthey will be upon us. You must imagine as you best can the competitive\nraidings at Midhurst of Widgery, Dangle, and Phipps. How Widgery\nwas great at questions, and Dangle good at inference, and Phipps so\nconspicuously inferior in everything that he felt it, and sulked with\nMrs. Milton most of the day, after the manner of your callow youth the\nwhole world over. Mrs. Milton stopped at the Angel and was very sad and\ncharming and intelligent, and Widgery paid the bill in the afternoon\nof Saturday, Chichester was attained. But by that time our fugitives--As\nyou shall immediately hear.\n\n\n\n\nXXVII. THE AWAKENING OF MR. HOOPDRIVER\n\nMr. Hoopdriver stirred on his pillow, opened his eyes, and, staring\nunmeaningly, yawned. The bedclothes were soft and pleasant. He turned\nthe peaked nose that overrides the insufficient moustache, up to the\nceiling, a pinkish projection over the billow of white. You might see it\nwrinkle as he yawned again, and then became quiet. So matters remained\nfor a space. Very slowly recollection returned to him. Then a shock\nof indeterminate brown hair appeared, and first one watery grey eye\na-wondering, and then two; the bed upheaved, and you had him, his thin\nneck projecting abruptly from the clothes he held about him, his face\nstaring about the room. He held the clothes about him, I hope I may\nexplain, because his night-shirt was at Bognor in an American-cloth\npacket, derelict. He yawned a third time, rubbed his eyes, smacked his\nlips. He was recalling almost everything now. The pursuit, the hotel,\nthe tremulous daring of his entry, the swift adventure of the inn\nyard, the moonlight--Abruptly he threw the clothes back and rose into\na sitting position on the edge of the bed. Without was the noise of\nshutters being unfastened and doors unlocked, and the passing of hoofs\nand wheels in the street. He looked at his watch. Half-past six. He\nsurveyed the sumptuous room again.\n\n\"Lord!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"It wasn't a dream, after all.\"\n\n\"I wonder what they charge for these Juiced rooms!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver,\nnursing one rosy foot.\n\nHe became meditative, tugging at his insufficient moustache. Suddenly he\ngave vent to a noiseless laugh. \"What a rush it was! Rushed in and off\nwith his girl right under his nose. Planned it well too. Talk of highway\nrobbery! Talk of brigands Up and off! How juiced SOLD he must be feeling\nIt was a shave too--in the coach yard!\"\n\nSuddenly he became silent. Abruptly his eyebrows rose and his jaw fell.\n\"I sa-a-ay!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\nHe had never thought of it before. Perhaps you will understand the whirl\nhe had been in overnight. But one sees things clearer in the daylight.\n\"I'm hanged if I haven't been and stolen a blessed bicycle.\"\n\n\"Who cares?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, presently, and his face supplied the\nanswer.\n\nThen he thought of the Young Lady in Grey again, and tried to put a more\nheroic complexion on the business. But of an early morning, on an empty\nstomach (as with characteristic coarseness, medical men put it) heroics\nare of a more difficult growth than by moonlight. Everything had seemed\nexceptionally fine and brilliant, but quite natural, the evening before.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver reached out his hand, took his Norfolk jacket, laid it\nover his knees, and took out the money from the little ticket pocket.\n\"Fourteen and six-half,\" he said, holding the coins in his left hand and\nstroking his chin with his right. He verified, by patting, the presence\nof a pocketbook in the breast pocket. \"Five, fourteen, six-half,\" said\nMr. Hoopdriver. \"Left.\"\n\nWith the Norfolk jacket still on his knees, he plunged into another\nsilent meditation. \"That wouldn't matter,\" he said. \"It's the bike's the\nbother.\n\n\"No good going back to Bognor.\n\n\"Might send it back by carrier, of course. Thanking him for the loan.\nHaving no further use--\" Mr. Hoopdriver chuckled and lapsed into the\nsilent concoction of a delightfully impudent letter. \"Mr. J. Hoopdriver\npresents his compliments.\" But the grave note reasserted itself.\n\n\"Might trundle back there in an hour, of course, and exchange them. MY\nold crock's so blessed shabby. He's sure to be spiteful too. Have me\nrun in, perhaps. Then she'd be in just the same old fix, only worse. You\nsee, I'm her Knight-errant. It complicates things so.\"\n\nHis eye, wandering loosely, rested on the sponge bath. \"What the juice\ndo they want with cream pans in a bedroom?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, en\npassant.\n\n\"Best thing we can do is to set out of here as soon as possible,\nanyhow. I suppose she'll go home to her friends. That bicycle is a juicy\nnuisance, anyhow. Juicy nuisance!\"\n\nHe jumped to his feet with a sudden awakening of energy, to proceed with\nhis toilet. Then with a certain horror he remembered that the simple\nnecessaries of that process were at Bognor! \"Lord!\" he remarked, and\nwhistled silently for a space. \"Rummy go! profit and loss; profit, one\nsister with bicycle complete, wot offers?--cheap for tooth and 'air\nbrush, vests, night-shirt, stockings, and sundries.\n\n\"Make the best of it,\" and presently, when it came to hair-brushing, he\nhad to smooth his troubled locks with his hands. It was a poor result.\n\"Sneak out and get a shave, I suppose, and buy a brush and so on. Chink\nagain! Beard don't show much.\"\n\nHe ran his hand over his chin, looked at himself steadfastly for some\ntime, and curled his insufficient moustache up with some care. Then he\nfell a-meditating on his beauty. He considered himself, three-quarter\nface, left and right. An expression of distaste crept over his features.\n\"Looking won't alter it, Hoopdriver,\" he remarked. \"You're a weedy\ncustomer, my man. Shoulders narrow. Skimpy, anyhow.\"\n\nHe put his knuckles on the toilet table and regarded himself with his\nchin lifted in the air. \"Good Lord!\" he said. \"WHAT a neck! Wonder why I\ngot such a thundering lump there.\"\n\nHe sat down on the bed, his eye still on the glass. \"If I'd been\nexercised properly, if I'd been fed reasonable, if I hadn't been shoved\nout of a silly school into a silly shop--But there! the old folks didn't\nknow no better. The schoolmaster ought to have. But he didn't, poor old\nfool!--Still, when it comes to meeting a girl like this--It's 'ARD.\n\n\"I wonder what Adam'd think of me--as a specimen. Civilisation,\neigh? Heir of the ages! I'm nothing. I know nothing. I can't do\nanything--sketch a bit. Why wasn't I made an artist?\n\n\"Beastly cheap, after all, this suit does look, in the sunshine.\"\n\n\"No good, Hoopdriver. Anyhow, you don't tell yourself any lies about it.\nLovers ain't your game,--anyway. But there's other things yet. You can\nhelp the young lady, and you will--I suppose she'll be going home--And\nthat business of the bicycle's to see to, too, my man. FORWARD,\nHoopdriver! If you ain't a beauty, that's no reason why you should stop\nand be copped, is it?\"\n\nAnd having got back in this way to a gloomy kind of self-satisfaction,\nhe had another attempt at his hair preparatory to leaving his room\nand hurrying on breakfast, for an early departure. While breakfast was\npreparing he wandered out into South Street and refurnished himself with\nthe elements of luggage again. \"No expense to be spared,\" he murmured,\ndisgorging the half-sovereign.\n\n\n\n\nXXVIII. THE DEPARTURE FROM CHICHESTER\n\nHe caused his 'sister' to be called repeatedly, and when she came down,\nexplained with a humorous smile his legal relationship to the bicycle\nin the yard. \"Might be disagreeable, y' know.\" His anxiety was obvious\nenough. \"Very well,\" she said (quite friendly); \"hurry breakfast, and\nwe'll ride out. I want to talk things over with you.\" The girl seemed\nmore beautiful than ever after the night's sleep; her hair in comely\ndark waves from her forehead, her ungauntleted finger-tips pink and\ncool. And how decided she was! Breakfast was a nervous ceremony,\nconversation fraternal but thin; the waiter overawed him, and he was\ncowed by a multiplicity of forks. But she called him \"Chris.\" They\ndiscussed their route over his sixpenny county map for the sake of\ntalking, but avoided a decision in the presence of the attendant. The\nfive-pound note was changed for the bill, and through Hoopdriver's\ndetermination to be quite the gentleman, the waiter and chambermaid got\nhalf a crown each and the ostler a florin. \"'Olidays,\" said the ostler\nto himself, without gratitude. The public mounting of the bicycles in\nthe street was a moment of trepidation. A policeman actually stopped and\nwatched them from the opposite kerb. Suppose him to come across and ask:\n\"Is that your bicycle, sir?\" Fight? Or drop it and run? It was a time of\nbewildering apprehension, too, going through the streets of the town,\nso that a milk cart barely escaped destruction under Mr. Hoopdriver's\nchancy wheel. That recalled him to a sense of erratic steering, and\nhe pulled himself together. In the lanes he breathed freer, and a less\nformal conversation presently began.\n\n\"You've ridden out of Chichester in a great hurry,\" said Jessie.\n\n\"Well, the fact of it is, I'm worried, just a little bit. About this\nmachine.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" she said. \"I had forgotten that. But where are we going?\"\n\n\"Jest a turning or two more, if you don't mind,\" said Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Jest a mile or so. I have to think of you, you know. I should feel more\neasy. If we was locked up, you know--Not that I should mind on my own\naccount--\"\n\nThey rode with a streaky, grey sea coming and going on their left hand.\nEvery mile they put between themselves and Chichester Mr. Hoopdriver\nfelt a little less conscience-stricken, and a little more of the gallant\ndesperado. Here he was riding on a splendid machine with a Slap-up girl\nbeside him. What would they think of it in the Emporium if any of them\nwere to see him? He imagined in detail the astonishment of Miss Isaacs\nand of Miss Howe. \"Why! It's Mr. Hoopdriver,\" Miss Isaacs would say.\n\"Never!\" emphatically from Miss Howe. Then he played with Briggs, and\nthen tried the 'G.V.' in a shay. \"Fancy introducing 'em to her--My\nsister pro tem.\" He was her brother Chris--Chris what?--Confound it!\nHarringon, Hartington--something like that. Have to keep off that topic\nuntil he could remember. Wish he'd told her the truth now--almost. He\nglanced at her. She was riding with her eyes straight ahead of her.\nThinking. A little perplexed, perhaps, she seemed. He noticed how well\nshe rode and that she rode with her lips closed--a thing he could never\nmanage.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver's mind came round to the future. What was she going to\ndo? What were they both going to do? His thoughts took a graver colour.\nHe had rescued her. This was fine, manly rescue work he was engaged\nupon. She ought to go home, in spite of that stepmother. He must insist\ngravely but firmly upon that. She was the spirited sort, of course, but\nstill--Wonder if she had any money? Wonder what the second-class fare\nfrom Havant to London is? Of course he would have to pay that--it was\nthe regular thing, he being a gentleman. Then should he take her home?\nHe began to rough in a moving sketch of the return. The stepmother,\nrepentant of her indescribable cruelties, would be present,--even these\nrich people have their troubles,--probably an uncle or two. The footman\nwould announce, Mr.--(bother that name!) and Miss Milton. Then two women\nweeping together, and a knightly figure in the background dressed in a\nhandsome Norfolk jacket, still conspicuously new. He would conceal his\nfeeling until the very end. Then, leaving, he would pause in the doorway\nin such an attitude as Mr. George Alexander might assume, and say,\nslowly and dwindlingly: \"Be kind to her--BE kind to her,\" and so depart,\nheartbroken to the meanest intelligence. But that was a matter for the\nfuture. He would have to begin discussing the return soon. There was no\ntraffic along the road, and he came up beside her (he had fallen behind\nin his musing). She began to talk. \"Mr. Denison,\" she began, and then,\ndoubtfully, \"That is your name? I'm very stupid--\"\n\n\"It is,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. (Denison, was it? Denison, Denison,\nDenison. What was she saying?)\n\n\"I wonder how far you are willing to help me?\" Confoundedly hard to\nanswer a question like that on the spur of the moment, without steering\nwildly. \"You may rely--\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, recovering from a violent\nwabble. \"I can assure you--I want to help you very much. Don't consider\nme at all. Leastways, consider me entirely at your service.\" (Nuisance\nnot to be able to say this kind of thing right.)\n\n\"You see, I am so awkwardly situated.\"\n\n\"If I can only help you--you will make me very happy--\" There was a\npause. Round a bend in the road they came upon a grassy space between\nhedge and road, set with yarrow and meadowsweet, where a felled tree lay\namong the green. There she dismounted, and propping her machine against\na stone, sat down. \"Here, we can talk,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, expectant.\n\nShe answered after a little while, sitting, elbow on knee, with her chin\nin her hand, and looking straight in front of her. \"I don't know--I am\nresolved to Live my Own Life.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"Naturally.\"\n\n\"I want to Live, and I want to see what life means. I want to learn.\nEveryone is hurrying me, everything is hurrying me; I want time to\nthink.\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver was puzzled, but admiring. It was wonderful how clear and\nready her words were. But then one might speak well with a throat and\nlips like that. He knew he was inadequate, but he tried to meet the\noccasion. \"If you let them rush you into anything you might repent of,\nof course you'd be very silly.\"\n\n\"Don't YOU want to learn?\" she asked.\n\n\"I was wondering only this morning,\" he began, and stopped.\n\nShe was too intent upon her own thoughts to notice this insufficiency.\n\"I find myself in life, and it terrifies me. I seem to be like a little\nspeck, whirling on a wheel, suddenly caught up. 'What am I here for?'\nI ask. Simply to be here at a time--I asked it a week ago, I asked it\nyesterday, and I ask it to-day. And little things happen and the days\npass. My stepmother takes me shopping, people come to tea, there is a\nnew play to pass the time, or a concert, or a novel. The wheels of the\nworld go on turning, turning. It is horrible. I want to do a miracle\nlike Joshua and stop the whirl until I have fought it out. At home--It's\nimpossible.\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver stroked his moustache. \"It IS so,\" he said in a\nmeditative tone. \"Things WILL go on,\" he said. The faint breath of\nsummer stirred the trees, and a bunch of dandelion puff lifted among the\nmeadowsweet and struck and broke into a dozen separate threads against\nhis knee. They flew on apart, and sank, as the breeze fell, among the\ngrass: some to germinate, some to perish. His eye followed them until\nthey had vanished.\n\n\"I can't go back to Surbiton,\" said the Young Lady in Grey.\n\n\"EIGH?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, catching at his moustache. This was an\nunexpected development.\n\n\"I want to write, you see,\" said the Young Lady in Grey, \"to write Books\nand alter things. To do Good. I want to lead a Free Life and Own myself.\nI can't go back. I want to obtain a position as a journalist. I have\nbeen told--But I know no one to help me at once. No one that I could\ngo to. There is one person--She was a mistress at my school. If I could\nwrite to her--But then, how could I get her answer?\"\n\n\"H'mp,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, very grave.\n\n\"I can't trouble you much more. You have come--you have risked things--\"\n\n\"That don't count,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"It's double pay to let me do\nit, so to speak.\"\n\n\"It is good of you to say that. Surbiton is so Conventional. I am\nresolved to be Unconventional--at any cost. But we are so hampered. If\nI could only burgeon out of all that hinders me! I want to struggle, to\ntake my place in the world. I want to be my own mistress, to shape my\nown career. But my stepmother objects so. She does as she likes herself,\nand is strict with me to ease her conscience. And if I go back now, go\nback owning myself beaten--\" She left the rest to his imagination.\n\n\"I see that,\" agreed Mr. Hoopdriver. He MUST help her. Within his\nskull he was doing some intricate arithmetic with five pounds six and\ntwopence. In some vague way he inferred from all this that Jessie was\ntrying to escape from an undesirable marriage, but was saying these\nthings out of modesty. His circle of ideas was so limited.\n\n\"You know, Mr.--I've forgotten your name again.\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver seemed lost in abstraction. \"You can't go back of course,\nquite like that,\" he said thoughtfully. His ears waxed suddenly red and\nhis cheeks flushed.\n\n\"But what IS your name?\"\n\n\"Name!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"Why!--Benson, of course.\"\n\n\"Mr. Benson--yes it's really very stupid of me. But I can never remember\nnames. I must make a note on my cuff.\" She clicked a little silver\npencil and wrote the name down. \"If I could write to my friend. I\nbelieve she would be able to help me to an independent life. I could\nwrite to her--or telegraph. Write, I think. I could scarcely explain in\na telegram. I know she would help me.\"\n\nClearly there was only one course open to a gentleman under the\ncircumstances. \"In that case,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, \"if you don't mind\ntrusting yourself to a stranger, we might continue as we are perhaps.\nFor a day or so. Until you heard.\" (Suppose thirty shillings a day, that\ngives four days, say four thirties is hun' and twenty, six quid,--well,\nthree days, say; four ten.)\n\n\"You are very good to me.\"\n\nHis expression was eloquent.\n\n\"Very well, then, and thank you. It's wonderful--it's more than I\ndeserve that you--\" She dropped the theme abruptly. \"What was our bill\nat Chichester?\"\n\n\"Eigh?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, feigning a certain stupidity. There was a\nbrief discussion. Secretly he was delighted at her insistence in paying.\nShe carried her point. Their talk came round to their immediate plans\nfor the day. They decided to ride easily, through Havant, and stop,\nperhaps, at Fareham or Southampton. For the previous day had tried them\nboth. Holding the map extended on his knee, Mr. Hoopdriver's eye fell\nby chance on the bicycle at his feet. \"That bicycle,\" he remarked, quite\nirrelevantly, \"wouldn't look the same machine if I got a big, double\nElarum instead of that little bell.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Jest a thought.\" A pause.\n\n\"Very well, then,--Havant and lunch,\" said Jessie, rising.\n\n\"I wish, somehow, we could have managed it without stealing that\nmachine,\" said Hoopdriver. \"Because it IS stealing it, you know, come to\nthink of it.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. If Mr. Bechamel troubles you--I will tell the whole world--if\nneed be.\"\n\n\"I believe you would,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, admiring her. \"You're plucky\nenough--goodness knows.\"\n\nDiscovering suddenly that she was standing, he, too, rose and picked up\nher machine. She took it and wheeled it into the road. Then he took his\nown. He paused, regarding it. \"I say!\" said he. \"How'd this bike look,\nnow, if it was enamelled grey?\" She looked over her shoulder at his\ngrave face. \"Why try and hide it in that way?\"\n\n\"It was jest a passing thought,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, airily. \"Didn't\nMEAN anything, you know.\"\n\nAs they were riding on to Havant it occurred to Mr. Hoopdriver in a\ntransitory manner that the interview had been quite other than his\nexpectation. But that was the way with everything in Mr. Hoopdriver's\nexperience. And though his Wisdom looked grave within him, and Caution\nwas chinking coins, and an ancient prejudice in favour of Property shook\nher head, something else was there too, shouting in his mind to drown\nall these saner considerations, the intoxicating thought of riding\nbeside Her all to-day, all to-morrow, perhaps for other days after that.\nOf talking to her familiarly, being brother of all her slender strength\nand freshness, of having a golden, real, and wonderful time beyond all\nhis imaginings. His old familiar fancyings gave place to anticipations\nas impalpable and fluctuating and beautiful as the sunset of a summer\nday.\n\nAt Havant he took an opportunity to purchase, at small hairdresser's in\nthe main street, a toothbrush, a pair of nail scissors, and a little\nbottle of stuff to darken the moustache, an article the shopman\nintroduced to his attention, recommended highly, and sold in the\nexcitement of the occasion.\n\n\n\n\nXXIX. THE UNEXPECTED ANECDOTE OF THE LION\n\nThey rode on to Cosham and lunched lightly but expensively there. Jessie\nwent out and posted her letter to her school friend. Then the green\nheight of Portsdown Hill tempted them, and leaving their machines in the\nvillage they clambered up the slope to the silent red-brick fort that\ncrowned it. Thence they had a view of Portsmouth and its cluster of\nsister towns, the crowded narrows of the harbour, the Solent and the\nIsle of Wight like a blue cloud through the hot haze. Jessie by some\nmiracle had become a skirted woman in the Cosham inn. Mr. Hoopdriver\nlounged gracefully on the turf, smoked a Red Herring cigarette, and\nlazily regarded the fortified towns that spread like a map away there,\nthe inner line of defence like toy fortifications, a mile off perhaps;\nand beyond that a few little fields and then the beginnings of Landport\nsuburb and the smoky cluster of the multitudinous houses. To the right\nat the head of the harbour shallows the town of Porchester rose among\nthe trees. Mr. Hoopdriver's anxiety receded to some remote corner of his\nbrain and that florid half-voluntary imagination of his shared the stage\nwith the image of Jessie. He began to speculate on the impression he\nwas creating. He took stock of his suit in a more optimistic spirit,\nand reviewed, with some complacency, his actions for the last four\nand twenty hours. Then he was dashed at the thought of her infinite\nperfections.\n\nShe had been observing him quietly, rather more closely during the last\nhour or so. She did not look at him directly because he seemed always\nlooking at her. Her own troubles had quieted down a little, and her\ncuriosity about the chivalrous, worshipping, but singular gentleman in\nbrown, was awakening. She had recalled, too, the curious incident of\ntheir first encounter. She found him hard to explain to herself. You\nmust understand that her knowledge of the world was rather less than\nnothing, having been obtained entirely from books. You must not take a\ncertain ignorance for foolishness.\n\nShe had begun with a few experiments. He did not know French except\n'sivver play,' a phrase he seemed to regard as a very good light\ntable joke in itself. His English was uncertain, but not such as books\ninformed her distinguished the lower classes. His manners seemed to her\ngood on the whole, but a trifle over-respectful and out of fashion. He\ncalled her I Madam' once. He seemed a person of means and leisure, but\nhe knew nothing of recent concerts, theatres, or books. How did he spend\nhis time? He was certainly chivalrous, and a trifle simpleminded. She\nfancied (so much is there in a change of costume) that she had never met\nwith such a man before. What COULD he be?\n\n\"Mr. Benson,\" she said, breaking a silence devoted to landscape.\n\nHe rolled over and regarded her, chin on knuckles.\n\n\"At your service.\"\n\n\"Do you paint? Are you an artist?\"\n\n\"Well.\" Judicious pause. \"I should hardly call myself a Nartist, you\nknow. I DO paint a little. And sketch, you know--skitty kind of things.\"\n\nHe plucked and began to nibble a blade of grass. It was really not\nso much lying as his quick imagination that prompted him to add, \"In\nPapers, you know, and all that.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Jessie, looking at him thoughtfully. Artists were a very\nheterogeneous class certainly, and geniuses had a trick of being a\nlittle odd. He avoided her eye and bit his grass. \"I don't do MUCH, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"It's not your profession?\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said Hoopdriver, anxious now to hedge. \"I don't make a regular\nthing of it, you know. Jest now and then something comes into my head\nand down it goes. No--I'm not a regular artist.\"\n\n\"Then you don't practise any regular profession?\" Mr. Hoopdriver looked\ninto her eyes and saw their quiet unsuspicious regard. He had vague\nideas of resuming the detective role. \"It's like this,\" he said, to\ngain time. \"I have a sort of profession. Only there's a kind of\nreason--nothing much, you know.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon for cross-examining you.\"\n\n\"No trouble,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"Only I can't very well--I leave it\nto you, you know. I don't want to make any mystery of it, so far as\nthat goes.\" Should he plunge boldly and be a barrister? That anyhow was\nsomething pretty good. But she might know about barristry.\n\n\"I think I could guess what you are.\"\n\n\"Well--guess,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"You come from one of the colonies?\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, veering round to the new wind. \"How did\nyou find out THAT?\" (the man was born in a London suburb, dear Reader.)\n\n\"I guessed,\" she said.\n\nHe lifted his eyebrows as one astonished, and clutched a new piece of\ngrass.\n\n\"You were educated up country.\"\n\n\"Good again,\" said Hoopdriver, rolling over again into her elbow.\n\"You're a CLAIRVOY ant.\" He bit at the grass, smiling. \"Which colony was\nit?\"\n\n\"That I don't know.\"\n\n\"You must guess,\" said Hoopdriver.\n\n\"South Africa,\" she said. \"I strongly incline to South Africa.\"\n\n\"South Africa's quite a large place,\" he said.\n\n\"But South Africa is right?\"\n\n\"You're warm,\" said Hoopdriver, \"anyhow,\" and the while his imagination\nwas eagerly exploring this new province.\n\n\"South Africa IS right?\" she insisted.\n\nHe turned over again and nodded, smiling reassuringly into her eyes.\n\n\"What made me think of South Africa was that novel of Olive Schreiner's,\nyou know--'The Story of an African Farm.' Gregory Rose is so like you.\"\n\n\"I never read 'The Story of an African Farm,'\" said Hoopdriver. \"I must.\nWhat's he like?\"\n\n\"You must read the book. But it's a wonderful place, with its mixture\nof races, and its brand-new civilisation jostling the old savagery. Were\nyou near Khama?\"\n\n\"He was a long way off from our place,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"We had\na little ostrich farm, you know--Just a few hundred of 'em, out\nJohannesburg way.\"\n\n\"On the Karroo--was it called?\"\n\n\"That's the term. Some of it was freehold though. Luckily. We got along\nvery well in the old days.--But there's no ostriches on that farm now.\"\nHe had a diamond mine in his head, just at the moment, but he stopped\nand left a little to the girl's imagination. Besides which it had\noccurred to him with a kind of shock that he was lying.\n\n\"What became of the ostriches?\"\n\n\"We sold 'em off, when we parted with the farm. Do you mind if I have\nanother cigarette? That was when I was quite a little chap, you know,\nthat we had this ostrich farm.\"\n\n\"Did you have Blacks and Boers about you?\"\n\n\"Lots,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, striking a match on his instep and\nbeginning to feel hot at the new responsibility he had brought upon\nhimself.\n\n\"How interesting! Do you know, I've never been out of England except to\nParis and Mentone and Switzerland.\"\n\n\"One gets tired of travelling (puff) after a bit, of course.\"\n\n\"You must tell me about your farm in South Africa. It always stimulates\nmy imagination to think of these places. I can fancy all the tall\nostriches being driven out by a black herd--to graze, I suppose. How do\nostriches feed?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Hoopdriver. \"That's rather various. They have their\nfancies, you know. There's fruit, of course, and that kind of thing. And\nchicken food, and so forth. You have to use judgment.\"\n\n\"Did you ever see a lion?\" \"They weren't very common in our district,\"\nsaid Hoopdriver, quite modestly. \"But I've seen them, of course. Once or\ntwice.\"\n\n\"Fancy seeing a lion! Weren't you frightened?\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver was now thoroughly sorry he had accepted that offer of\nSouth Africa. He puffed his cigarette and regarded the Solent languidly\nas he settled the fate on that lion in his mind. \"I scarcely had time,\"\nhe said. \"It all happened in a minute.\"\n\n\"Go on,\" she said.\n\n\"I was going across the inner paddock where the fatted ostriches were.\"\n\n\"Did you EAT ostriches, then? I did not know--\"\n\n\"Eat them!--often. Very nice they ARE too, properly stuffed. Well,\nwe--I, rather--was going across this paddock, and I saw something\nstanding up in the moonlight and looking at me.\" Mr. Hoopdriver was in a\nhot perspiration now. His invention seemed to have gone limp. \"Luckily\nI had my father's gun with me. I was scared, though, I can tell you.\n(Puff.) I just aimed at the end that I thought was the head. And let\nfly. (Puff.) And over it went, you know.\"\n\n\"Dead?\"\n\n\"AS dead. It was one of the luckiest shots I ever fired. And I wasn't\nmuch over nine at the time, neither.\"\n\n\"_I_ should have screamed and run away.\"\n\n\"There's some things you can't run away from,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"To\nrun would have been Death.\"\n\n\"I don't think I ever met a lion-killer before,\" she remarked, evidently\nwith a heightened opinion of him.\n\nThere was a pause. She seemed meditating further questions. Mr.\nHoopdriver drew his watch hastily. \"I say,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, showing\nit to her, \"don't you think we ought to be getting on?\"\n\nHis face was flushed, his ears bright red. She ascribed his confusion\nto modesty. He rose with a lion added to the burthens of his conscience,\nand held out his hand to assist her. They walked down into Cosham\nagain, resumed their machines, and went on at a leisurely pace along\nthe northern shore of the big harbour. But Mr. Hoopdriver was no longer\nhappy. This horrible, this fulsome lie, stuck in his memory. Why HAD he\ndone it? She did not ask for any more South African stories, happily--at\nleast until Porchester was reached--but talked instead of Living\nOne's Own Life, and how custom hung on people like chains. She talked\nwonderfully, and set Hoopdriver's mind fermenting. By the Castle, Mr.\nHoopdriver caught several crabs in little shore pools. At Fareham they\nstopped for a second tea, and left the place towards the hour of sunset,\nunder such invigorating circumstances as you shall in due course hear.\n\n\n\n\nXXX. THE RESCUE EXPEDITION\n\nAnd now to tell of those energetic chevaliers, Widgery, Dangle, and\nPhipps, and of that distressed beauty, 'Thomas Plantagenet,' well known\nin society, so the paragraphs said, as Mrs. Milton. We left them at\nMidhurst station, if I remember rightly, waiting, in a state of fine\nemotion, for the Chichester train. It was clearly understood by the\nentire Rescue Party that Mrs. Milton was bearing up bravely against\nalmost overwhelming grief. The three gentlemen outdid one another in\nsympathetic expedients; they watched her gravely almost tenderly. The\nsubstantial Widgery tugged at his moustache, and looked his unspeakable\nfeelings at her with those dog-like, brown eyes of his; the slender\nDangle tugged at HIS moustache, and did what he could with unsympathetic\ngrey ones. Phipps, unhappily, had no moustache to run any risks with, so\nhe folded his arms and talked in a brave, indifferent, bearing-up tone\nabout the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, just to cheer the\npoor woman up a little. And even Mrs. Milton really felt that exalted\nmelancholy to the very bottom of her heart, and tried to show it in a\ndozen little, delicate, feminine ways.\n\n\"There is nothing to do until we get to Chichester,\" said Dangle.\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Widgery, and aside in her ear: \"You really ate scarcely\nanything, you know.\"\n\n\"Their trains are always late,\" said Phipps, with his fingers along the\nedge of his collar. Dangle, you must understand, was a sub-editor and\nreviewer, and his pride was to be Thomas Plantagenet's intellectual\ncompanion. Widgery, the big man, was manager of a bank and a mighty\ngolfer, and his conception of his relations to her never came into his\nmind without those charming oldlines, \"Douglas, Douglas, tender and\ntrue,\" falling hard upon its heels. His name was Douglas-Douglas\nWidgery. And Phipps, Phipps was a medical student still, and he felt\nthat he laid his heart at her feet, the heart of a man of the world.\nShe was kind to them all in her way, and insisted on their being\nfriends together, in spite of a disposition to reciprocal criticism\nthey displayed. Dangle thought Widgery a Philistine, appreciating but\ncoarsely the merits of \"A Soul Untrammelled,\" and Widgery thought Dangle\nlacked, humanity--would talk insincerely to say a clever thing. Both\nDangle and Widgery thought Phipps a bit of a cub, and Phipps thought\nboth Dangle and Widgery a couple of Thundering Bounders.\n\n\"They would have got to Chichester in time for lunch,\" said Dangle, in\nthe train. \"After, perhaps. And there's no sufficient place in the road.\nSo soon as we get there, Phipps must inquire at the chief hotels to see\nif any one answering to her description has lunched there.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'LL inquire,\" said Phipps. \"Willingly. I suppose you and Widgery\nwill just hang about--\"\n\nHe saw an expression of pain on Mrs. Milton's gentle face, and stopped\nabruptly.\n\n\"No,\" said Dangle, \"we shan't HANG ABOUT, as you put it. There are\ntwo places in Chichester where tourists might go--the cathedral and a\nremarkably fine museum. I shall go to the cathedral and make an inquiry\nor so, while Widgery--\"\n\n\"The museum. Very well. And after that there's a little thing or two\nI've thought of myself,\" said Widgery.\n\nTo begin with they took Mrs. Milton in a kind of procession to the Red\nHotel and established her there with some tea. \"You are so kind to\nme,\" she said. \"All of you.\" They signified that it was nothing, and\ndispersed to their inquiries. By six they returned, their zeal a little\ndamped, without news. Widgery came back with Dangle. Phipps was the last\nto return. \"You're quite sure,\" said Widgery, \"that there isn't any flaw\nin that inference of yours?\"\n\n\"Quite,\" said Dangle, rather shortly.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Widgery, \"their starting from Midhurst on the\nChichester road doesn't absolutely bind them not to change their minds.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow!--It does. Really it does. You must allow me to have\nenough intelligence to think of cross-roads. Really you must. There\naren't any cross-roads to tempt them. Would they turn aside here? No.\nWould they turn there? Many more things are inevitable than you fancy.\"\n\n\"We shall see at once,\" said Widgery, at the window. \"Here comes Phipps.\nFor my own part--\"\n\n\"Phipps!\" said Mrs. Milton. \"Is he hurrying? Does he look--\" She rose in\nher eagerness, biting her trembling lip, and went towards the window.\n\n\"No news,\" said Phipps, entering.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Widgery.\n\n\"None?\" said Dangle.\n\n\"Well,\" said Phipps. \"One fellow had got hold of a queer story of a man\nin bicycling clothes, who was asking the same question about this time\nyesterday.\"\n\n\"What question?\" said Mrs. Milton, in the shadow of the window. She\nspoke in a low voice, almost a whisper.\n\n\"Why--Have you seen a young lady in a grey bicycling costume?\"\n\nDangle caught at his lower lip. \"What's that?\" he said. \"Yesterday! A\nman asking after her then! What can THAT mean?\"\n\n\"Heaven knows,\" said Phipps, sitting down wearily. \"You'd better infer.\"\n\n\"What kind of man?\" said Dangle.\n\n\"How should I know?--in bicycling costume, the fellow said.\"\n\n\"But what height?--What complexion?\"\n\n\"Didn't ask,\" said Phipps. \"DIDN'T ASK! Nonsense,\" said Dangle.\n\n\"Ask him yourself,\" said Phipps. \"He's an ostler chap in the White\nHart,--short, thick-set fellow, with a red face and a crusty manner.\nLeaning up against the stable door. Smells of whiskey. Go and ask him.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Dangle, taking his straw hat from the shade over the\nstuffed bird on the chiffonier and turning towards the door. \"I might\nhave known.\"\n\nPhipps' mouth opened and shut.\n\n\"You're tired, I'm sure, Mr. Phipps,\" said the lady, soothingly. \"Let me\nring for some tea for you.\" It suddenly occurred to Phipps that he had\nlapsed a little from his chivalry. \"I was a little annoyed at the way he\nrushed me to do all this business,\" he said. \"But I'd do a hundred times\nas much if it would bring you any nearer to her.\" Pause. \"I WOULD like a\nlittle tea.\"\n\n\"I don't want to raise any false hopes,\" said Widgery. \"But I do NOT\nbelieve they even came to Chichester. Dangle's a very clever fellow, of\ncourse, but sometimes these Inferences of his--\"\n\n\"Tchak!\" said Phipps, suddenly.\n\n\"What is it?\" said Mrs. Milton.\n\n\"Something I've forgotten. I went right out from here, went to every\nother hotel in the place, and never thought--But never mind. I'll ask\nwhen the waiter comes.\"\n\n\"You don't mean--\" A tap, and the door opened. \"Tea, m'm? yes, m'm,\"\nsaid the waiter.\n\n\"One minute,\" said Phipps. \"Was a lady in grey, a cycling lady--\"\n\n\"Stopped here yesterday? Yessir. Stopped the night. With her brother,\nsir--a young gent.\"\n\n\"Brother!\" said Mrs. Milton, in a low tone. \"Thank God!\"\n\nThe waiter glanced at her and understood everything. \"A young gent,\nsir,\" he said, \"very free with his money. Give the name of Beaumont.\"\nHe proceeded to some rambling particulars, and was cross-examined by\nWidgery on the plans of the young couple.\n\n\"Havant! Where's Havant?\" said Phipps. \"I seem to remember it\nsomewhere.\"\n\n\"Was the man tall?\" said Mrs. Milton, intently, \"distinguished looking?\nwith a long, flaxen moustache? and spoke with a drawl?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the waiter, and thought. \"His moustache, m'm, was scarcely\nlong--scrubby more, and young looking.\"\n\n\"About thirty-five, he was?\"\n\n\"No, m'm. More like five and twenty. Not that.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Mrs. Milton, speaking in a curious, hollow voice,\nfumbling for her salts, and showing the finest self-control. \"It must\nhave been her YOUNGER brother--must have been.\"\n\n\"That will do, thank you,\" said Widgery, officiously, feeling that she\nwould be easier under this new surprise if the man were dismissed. The\nwaiter turned to go, and almost collided with Dangle, who was entering\nthe room, panting excitedly and with a pocket handkerchief held to his\nright eye. \"Hullo!\" said dangle. \"What's up?\"\n\n\"What's up with YOU?\" said Phipps.\n\n\"Nothing--an altercation merely with that drunken ostler of yours. He\nthought it was a plot to annoy him--that the Young Lady in Grey was\nmythical. Judged from your manner. I've got a piece of raw meat to keep\nover it. You have some news, I see?\"\n\n\"Did the man hit you?\" asked Widgery.\n\nMrs. Milton rose and approached Dangle. \"Cannot I do anything?\"\n\nDangle was heroic. \"Only tell me your news,\" he said, round the corner\nof the handkerchief.\n\n\"It was in this way,\" said Phipps, and explained rather sheepishly.\nWhile he was doing so, with a running fire of commentary from Widgery,\nthe waiter brought in a tray of tea. \"A time table,\" said Dangle,\npromptly, \"for Havant.\" Mrs. Milton poured two cups, and Phipps and\nDangle partook in passover form. They caught the train by a hair's\nbreadth. So to Havant and inquiries.\n\nDangle was puffed up to find that his guess of Havant was right. In view\nof the fact that beyond Havant the Southampton road has a steep hill\ncontinuously on the right-hand side, and the sea on the left, he hit\nupon a magnificent scheme for heading the young folks off. He and Mrs.\nMilton would go to Fareham, Widgery and Phipps should alight one each at\nthe intermediate stations of Cosham and Porchester, and come on by the\nnext train if they had no news. If they did not come on, a wire to the\nFareham post office was to explain why. It was Napoleonic, and more than\nconsoled Dangle for the open derision of the Havant street boys at the\nhandkerchief which still protected his damaged eye.\n\nMoreover, the scheme answered to perfection. The fugitives escaped by\na hair's breadth. They were outside the Golden Anchor at Fareham, and\npreparing to mount, as Mrs. Milton and Dangle came round the corner\nfrom the station. \"It's her!\" said Mrs. Milton, and would have screamed.\n\"Hist!\" said Dangle, gripping the lady's arm, removing his handkerchief\nin his excitement, and leaving the piece of meat over his eye, an\nextraordinary appearance which seemed unexpectedly to calm her. \"Be\ncool!\" said Dangle, glaring under the meat. \"They must not see us. They\nwill get away else. Were there flys at the station?\" The young couple\nmounted and vanished round the corner of the Winchester road. Had it not\nbeen for the publicity of the business, Mrs. Milton would have fainted.\n\"SAVE HER!\" she said.\n\n\"Ah! A conveyance,\" said Dangle. \"One minute.\"\n\nHe left her in a most pathetic attitude, with her hand pressed to her\nheart, and rushed into the Golden Anchor. Dog cart in ten minutes.\nEmerged. The meat had gone now, and one saw the cooling puffiness over\nhis eye. \"I will conduct you back to the station,\" said Dangle; \"hurry\nback here, and pursue them. You will meet Widgery and Phipps and tell\nthem I am in pursuit.\"\n\nShe was whirled back to the railway station and left there, on a hard,\nblistered, wooden seat in the sun. She felt tired and dreadfully\nruffled and agitated and dusty. Dangle was, no doubt, most energetic\nand devoted; but for a kindly, helpful manner commend her to Douglas\nWidgery.\n\nMeanwhile Dangle, his face golden in the evening sun, was driving (as\nwell as he could) a large, black horse harnessed into a thing called a\ngig, northwestward towards Winchester. Dangle, barring his swollen eye,\nwas a refined-looking little man, and he wore a deerstalker cap and was\ndressed in dark grey. His neck was long and slender. Perhaps you know\nwhat gigs are,--huge, big, wooden things and very high and the horse,\ntoo, was huge and big and high, with knobby legs, a long face, a hard\nmouth, and a whacking trick of pacing. Smack, smack, smack, smack it\nwent along the road, and hard by the church it shied vigorously at a\nhooded perambulator.\n\nThe history of the Rescue Expedition now becomes confused. It appears\nthat Widgery was extremely indignant to find Mrs. Milton left about upon\nthe Fareham platform. The day had irritated him somehow, though he\nhad started with the noblest intentions, and he seemed glad to find an\noutlet for justifiable indignation. \"He's such a spasmodic creature,\"\nsaid Widgery. \"Rushing off! And I suppose we're to wait here until he\ncomes back! It's likely. He's so egotistical, is Dangle. Always wants to\nmismanage everything himself.\"\n\n\"He means to help me,\" said Mrs. Milton, a little reproachfully,\ntouching his arm. Widgery was hardly in the mood to be mollified all\nat once. \"He need not prevent ME,\" he said, and stopped. \"It's no good\ntalking, you know, and you are tired.\"\n\n\"I can go on,\" she said brightly, \"if only we find her.\" \"While I\nwas cooling my heels in Cosham I bought a county map.\" He produced and\nopened it. \"Here, you see, is the road out of Fareham.\" He proceeded\nwith the calm deliberation of a business man to develop a proposal\nof taking train forthwith to Winchester. \"They MUST be going to\nWinchester,\" he explained. It was inevitable. To-morrow Sunday,\nWinchester a cathedral town, road going nowhere else of the slightest\nimportance.\n\n\"But Mr. Dangle?\"\n\n\"He will simply go on until he has to pass something, and then he will\nbreak his neck. I have seen Dangle drive before. It's scarcely likely\na dog-cart, especially a hired dog-cart, will overtake bicycles in the\ncool of the evening. Rely upon me, Mrs. Milton--\"\n\n\"I am in your hands,\" she said, with pathetic littleness, looking up at\nhim, and for the moment he forgot the exasperation of the day.\n\nPhipps, during this conversation, had stood in a somewhat depressed\nattitude, leaning on his stick, feeling his collar, and looking from one\nspeaker to the other. The idea of leaving Dangle behind seemed to him an\nexcellent one. \"We might leave a message at the place where he got the\ndog-cart,\" he suggested, when he saw their eyes meeting. There was a\ncheerful alacrity about all three at the proposal.\n\nBut they never got beyond Botley. For even as their train ran into the\nstation, a mighty rumbling was heard, there was a shouting overhead, the\nguard stood astonished on the platform, and Phipps, thrusting his\nhead out of the window, cried, \"There he goes!\" and sprang out of the\ncarriage. Mrs. Milton, following in alarm, just saw it. From Widgery it\nwas hidden. Botley station lies in a cutting, overhead was the roadway,\nand across the lemon yellows and flushed pinks of the sunset, there\nwhirled a great black mass, a horse like a long-nosed chess knight,\nthe upper works of a gig, and Dangle in transit from front to back.\nA monstrous shadow aped him across the cutting. It was the event of a\nsecond. Dangle seemed to jump, hang in the air momentarily, and vanish,\nand after a moment's pause came a heart-rending smash. Then two black\nheads running swiftly.\n\n\"Better get out,\" said Phipps to Mrs. Milton, who stood fascinated in\nthe doorway.\n\nIn another moment all three were hurrying up the steps. They found\nDangle, hatless, standing up with cut hands extended, having his hands\nbrushed by an officious small boy. A broad, ugly road ran downhill in a\nlong vista, and in the distance was a little group of Botley inhabitants\nholding the big, black horse. Even at that distance they could see\nthe expression of conscious pride on the monster's visage. It was as\nwooden-faced a horse as you can imagine. The beasts in the Tower of\nLondon, on which the men in armour are perched, are the only horses I\nhave ever seen at all like it. However, we are not concerned now with\nthe horse, but with Dangle. \"Hurt?\" asked Phipps, eagerly, leading.\n\n\"Mr. Dangle!\" cried Mrs. Milton, clasping her hands.\n\n\"Hullo!\" said Dangle, not surprised in the slightest. \"Glad you've come.\nI may want you. Bit of a mess I'm in--eigh? But I've caught 'em. At the\nvery place I expected, too.\"\n\n\"Caught them!\" said Widgery. \"Where are they?\"\n\n\"Up there,\" he said, with a backward motion of his head. \"About a mile\nup the hill. I left 'em. I HAD to.\"\n\n\"I don't understand,\" said Mrs. Milton, with that rapt, painful look\nagain. \"Have you found Jessie?\"\n\n\"I have. I wish I could wash the gravel out of my hands somewhere. It\nwas like this, you know. Came on them suddenly round a corner. Horse\nshied at the bicycles. They were sitting by the roadside botanising\nflowers. I just had time to shout, 'Jessie Milton, we've been looking\nfor you,' and then that confounded brute bolted. I didn't dare turn\nround. I had all my work to do to save myself being turned over, as it\nwas--so long as I did, I mean. I just shouted, 'Return to your friends.\nAll will be forgiven.' And off I came, clatter, clatter. Whether they\nheard--\"\n\n\"TAKE ME TO HER,\" said Mrs. Milton, with intensity, turning towards\nWidgery.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Widgery, suddenly becoming active. \"How far is it,\nDangle?\"\n\n\"Mile and a half or two miles. I was determined to find them, you know.\nI say though--Look at my hands! But I beg your pardon, Mrs. Milton.\" He\nturned to Phipps. \"Phipps, I say, where shall I wash the gravel out? And\nhave a look at my knee?\"\n\n\"There's the station,\" said Phipps, becoming helpful. Dangle made a\nstep, and a damaged knee became evident. \"Take my arm,\" said Phipps.\n\n\"Where can we get a conveyance?\" asked Widgery of two small boys.\n\nThe two small boys failed to understand. They looked at one another.\n\n\"There's not a cab, not a go-cart, in sight,\" said Widgery. \"It's a case\nof a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.\"\n\n\"There's a harse all right,\" said one of the small boys with a movement\nof the head.\n\n\"Don't you know where we can hire traps?\" asked Widgery. \"Or a cart\nor--anything?\" asked Mrs. Milton.\n\n\"John Ooker's gart a cart, but no one can't 'ire'n,\" said the larger of\nthe small boys, partially averting his face and staring down the road\nand making a song of it. \"And so's my feyther, for's leg us broke.\"\n\n\"Not a cart even! Evidently. What shall we do?\"\n\nIt occurred to Mrs. Milton that if Widgery was the man for courtly\ndevotion, Dangle was infinitely readier of resource. \"I suppose--\" she\nsaid, timidly. \"Perhaps if you were to ask Mr. Dangle--\"\n\nAnd then all the gilt came off Widgery. He answered quite rudely.\n\"Confound Dangle! Hasn't he messed us up enough? He must needs drive\nafter them in a trap to tell them we're coming, and now you want me to\nask him--\"\n\nHer beautiful blue eyes were filled with tears. He stopped abruptly.\n\"I'll go and ask Dangle,\" he said, shortly. \"If you wish it.\" And went\nstriding into the station and down the steps, leaving her in the road\nunder the quiet inspection of the two little boys, and with a kind of\nballad refrain running through her head, \"Where are the Knights of the\nOlden Time?\" and feeling tired to death and hungry and dusty and out of\ncurl, and, in short, a martyr woman.\n\n\n\n\nXXXI.\n\nIt goes to my heart to tell of the end of that day, how the fugitives\nvanished into Immensity; how there were no more trains how Botley stared\nunsympathetically with a palpable disposition to derision, denying\nconveyances how the landlord of the Heron was suspicious, how the next\nday was Sunday, and the hot summer's day had crumpled the collar of\nPhipps and stained the skirts of Mrs. Milton, and dimmed the radiant\nemotions of the whole party. Dangle, with sticking-plaster and a black\neye, felt the absurdity of the pose of the Wounded Knight, and abandoned\nit after the faintest efforts. Recriminations never, perhaps, held the\nforeground of the talk, but they played like summer lightning on the\nedge of the conversation. And deep in the hearts of all was a galling\nsense of the ridiculous. Jessie, they thought, was most to blame.\nApparently, too, the worst, which would have made the whole business\ntragic, was not happening. Here was a young woman--young woman do I say?\na mere girl!--had chosen to leave a comfortable home in Surbiton, and\nall the delights of a refined and intellectual circle, and had rushed\noff, trailing us after her, posing hard, mutually jealous, and now tired\nand weather-worn, to flick us off at last, mere mud from her wheel, into\nthis detestable village beer-house on a Saturday night! And she had\ndone it, not for Love and Passion, which are serious excuses one may\nrecognise even if one must reprobate, but just for a Freak, just for a\nfantastic Idea; for nothing, in fact, but the outraging of Common Sense.\nYet withal, such was our restraint, that we talked of her still as one\nmuch misguided, as one who burthened us with anxiety, as a lamb astray,\nand Mrs. Milton having eaten, continued to show the finest feelings on\nthe matter.\n\nShe sat, I may mention, in the cushioned basket-chair, the only\ncomfortable chair in the room, and we sat on incredibly hard,\nhorsehair things having antimacassars tied to their backs by means\nof lemon-coloured bows. It was different from those dear old talks at\nSurbiton, somehow. She sat facing the window, which was open (the night\nwas so tranquil and warm), and the dim light--for we did not use the\nlamp--suited her admirably. She talked in a voice that told you she was\ntired, and she seemed inclined to state a case against herself in the\nmatter of \"A Soul Untrammelled.\" It was such an evening as might live in\na sympathetic memoir, but it was a little dull while it lasted.\n\n\"I feel,\" she said, \"that I am to blame. I have Developed. That first\nbook of mine--I do not go back upon a word of it, mind, but it has been\nmisunderstood, misapplied.\"\n\n\"It has,\" said Widgery, trying to look so deeply sympathetic as to be\nvisible in the dark. \"Deliberately misunderstood.\"\n\n\"Don't say that,\" said the lady. \"Not deliberately. I try and think that\ncritics are honest. After their lights. I was not thinking of critics.\nBut she--I mean--\" She paused, an interrogation.\n\n\"It is possible,\" said Dangle, scrutinising his sticking-plaster.\n\n\"I write a book and state a case. I want people to THINK as I recommend,\nnot to DO as I recommend. It is just Teaching. Only I make it into a\nstory. I want to Teach new Ideas, new Lessons, to promulgate Ideas. Then\nwhen the Ideas have been spread abroad--Things will come about. Only now\nit is madness to fly in the face of the established order. Bernard Shaw,\nyou know, has explained that with regard to Socialism. We all know that\nto earn all you consume is right, and that living on invested capital is\nwrong. Only we cannot begin while we are so few. It is Those Others.\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" said Widgery. \"It is Those Others. They must begin first.\"\n\n\"And meanwhile you go on banking--\"\n\n\"If I didn't, some one else would.\"\n\n\"And I live on Mr. Milton's Lotion while I try to gain a footing in\nLiterature.\"\n\n\"TRY!\" said Phipps. \"You HAVE done so.\" And, \"That's different,\" said\nDangle, at the same time.\n\n\"You are so kind to me. But in this matter. Of course Georgina Griffiths\nin my book lived alone in a flat in Paris and went to life classes and\nhad men visitors, but then she was over twenty-one.\"\n\n\"Jessica is only seventeen, and girlish for that,\" said Dangle.\n\n\"It alters everything. That child! It is different with a woman. And\nGeorgina Griffiths never flaunted her freedom--on a bicycle, in country\nplaces. In this country. Where every one is so particular. Fancy,\nSLEEPING away from home. It's dreadful--If it gets about it spells ruin\nfor her.\"\n\n\"Ruin,\" said Widgery.\n\n\"No man would marry a girl like that,\" said Phipps.\n\n\"It must be hushed up,\" said Dangle.\n\n\"It always seems to me that life is made up of individuals, of\nindividual cases. We must weigh each person against his or her\ncircumstances. General rules don't apply--\"\n\n\"I often feel the force of that,\" said Widgery. \"Those are my rules. Of\ncourse my books--\"\n\n\"It's different, altogether different,\" said Dangle. \"A novel deals with\ntypical cases.\"\n\n\"And life is not typical,\" said Widgery, with immense profundity.\n\nThen suddenly, unintentionally, being himself most surprised and shocked\nof any in the room, Phipps yawned. The failing was infectious, and the\ngathering having, as you can easily understand, talked itself weary,\ndispersed on trivial pretences. But not to sleep immediately. Directly\nDangle was alone he began, with infinite disgust, to scrutinise his\ndarkling eye, for he was a neat-minded little man in spite of his\nenergy. The whole business--so near a capture--was horribly vexatious.\nPhipps sat on his bed for some time examining, with equal disgust, a\ncollar he would have thought incredible for Sunday twenty-four hours\nbefore. Mrs. Milton fell a-musing on the mortality of even big, fat men\nwith dog-like eyes, and Widgery was unhappy because he had been so cross\nto her at the station, and because so far he did not feel that he had\nscored over Dangle. Also he was angry with Dangle. And all four of\nthem, being souls living very much upon the appearances of things, had a\npainful, mental middle distance of Botley derisive and suspicious, and\na remoter background of London humorous, and Surbiton speculative. Were\nthey really, after all, behaving absurdly?\n\n\n\n\nXXXII. MR. HOOPDRIVER, KNIGHT ERRANT\n\nAs Mr. Dangle bad witnessed, the fugitives had been left by him by\nthe side of the road about two miles from Botley. Before Mr. Dangle's\nappearance, Mr. Hoopdriver had been learning with great interest that\nmere roadside flowers had names,--star-flowers, wind-stars, St. John's\nwort, willow herb, lords and ladies, bachelor's buttons,--most curious\nnames, some of them. \"The flowers are all different in South Africa,\ny'know,\" he was explaining with a happy fluke of his imagination to\naccount for his ignorance. Then suddenly, heralded by clattering sounds\nand a gride of wheels, Dangle had flared and thundered across the\ntranquillity of the summer evening; Dangle, swaying and gesticulating\nbehind a corybantic black horse, had hailed Jessie by her name, had\nbacked towards the hedge for no ostensible reason, and vanished to the\naccomplishment of the Fate that had been written down for him from the\nvery beginning of things. Jessie and Hoopdriver had scarcely time to\nstand up and seize their machines, before this tumultuous, this swift\nand wonderful passing of Dangle was achieved. He went from side to side\nof the road,--worse even than the riding forth of Mr. Hoopdriver it\nwas,--and vanished round the corner.\n\n\"He knew my name,\" said Jessie. \"Yes--it was Mr. Dangle.\"\n\n\"That was our bicycles did that,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver simultaneously,\nand speaking with a certain complacent concern. \"I hope he won't get\nhurt.\"\n\n\"That was Mr. Dangle,\" repeated Jessie, and Mr. Hoopdriver heard this\ntime, with a violent start. His eyebrows went up spasmodically.\n\n\"What! someone you know?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Lord!\"\n\n\"He was looking for me,\" said Jessie. \"I could see. He began to call to\nme before the horse shied. My stepmother has sent him.\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver wished he had returned the bicycle after all, for his\nideas were still a little hazy about Bechamel and Mrs. Milton. Honesty\nIS the best policy--often, he thought. He turned his head this way and\nthat. He became active. \"After us, eigh? Then he'll come back. He's gone\ndown that hill, and he won't be able to pull up for a bit, I'm certain.\"\n\nJessie, he saw, had wheeled her machine into the road and was mounting.\nStill staring at the corner that had swallowed up Dangle, Hoopdriver\nfollowed suit. And so, just as the sun was setting, they began\nanother flight together,--riding now towards Bishops Waltham, with Mr.\nHoopdriver in the post of danger--the rear--ever and again looking over\nhis shoulder and swerving dangerously as he did so. Occasionally Jessie\nhad to slacken her pace. He breathed heavily, and hated himself because\nhis mouth fell open, After nearly an hour's hard riding, they found\nthemselves uncaught at Winchester. Not a trace of Dangle nor any other\ndanger was visible as they rode into the dusky, yellow-lit street.\nThough the bats had been fluttering behind thehedges and the evening\nstar was bright while they were still two miles from Winchester, Mr.\nHoopdriver pointed out the dangers of stopping in such an obvious\nabiding-place, and gently but firmly insisted upon replenishing the\nlamps and riding on towards Salisbury. From Winchester, roads branch in\nevery direction, and to turn abruptly westward was clearly the way to\nthrow off the chase. As Hoopdriver saw the moon rising broad and yellow\nthrough the twilight, he thought he should revive the effect of that\nride out of Bognor; but somehow, albeit the moon and all the atmospheric\neffects were the same, the emotions were different. They rode in\nabsolute silence, and slowly after they had cleared the outskirts of\nWinchester. Both of them were now nearly tired out,--the level was\ntedious, and even a little hill a burden; and so it came about that\nin the hamlet of Wallenstock they were beguiled to stop and ask for\naccommodation in an exceptionally prosperous-looking village inn. A\nplausible landlady rose to the occasion.\n\nNow, as they passed into the room where their suppers were prepared, Mr.\nHoopdriver caught a glimpse through a door ajar and floating in a reek\nof smoke, of three and a half faces--for the edge of the door cut one\ndown--and an American cloth-covered table with several glasses and a\ntankard. And he also heard a remark. In the second before he heard that\nremark, Mr. Hoopdriver had been a proud and happy man, to particularize,\na baronet's heir incognito. He had surrendered their bicycles to the odd\nman of the place with infinite easy dignity, and had bowingly opened\nthe door for Jessie. \"Who's that, then?\" he imagined people saying;\nand then, \"Some'n pretty well orf--judge by the bicycles.\" Then the\nimaginary spectators would fall a-talking of the fashionableness of\nbicycling,--how judges And stockbrokers and actresses and, in fact, all\nthe best people rode, and how that it was often the fancy of such great\nfolk to shun the big hotels, the adulation of urban crowds, and seek,\nincognito, the cosy quaintnesses of village life. Then, maybe, they\nwould think of a certain nameless air of distinction about the lady\nwho had stepped across the doorway, and about the handsome,\nflaxen-moustached, blue-eyed Cavalier who had followed her in, and they\nwould look one to another. \"Tell you what it is,\" one of the village\nelders would say--just as they do in novels--voicing the thought of all,\nin a low, impressive tone: \"There's such a thin' as entertaining barranets\nunawares--not to mention no higher things--\"\n\nSuch, I say, had been the filmy, delightful stuff in Mr. Hoopdriver's\nhead the moment before he heard that remark. But the remark toppled\nhim headlong. What the precise remark was need not concern us. It was\na casual piece of such satire as Strephon delights in. Should you be\ncurious, dear lady, as to its nature, you have merely to dress yourself\nin a really modern cycling costume, get one of the feeblest-looking\nof your men to escort you, and ride out, next Saturday evening, to any\npublic house where healthy, homely people gather together. Then you\nwill hear quite a lot of the kind of thing Mr. Hoopdriver heard. More,\npossibly, than you will desire.\n\nThe remark, I must add, implicated Mr. Hoopdriver. It indicated an\nentire disbelief in his social standing. At a blow, it shattered all\nthe gorgeous imaginative fabric his mind had been rejoicing in. All that\nfoolish happiness vanished like a dream. And there was nothing to show\nfor it, as there is nothing to show for any spiteful remark that has\never been made. Perhaps the man who said the thing had a gleam of\nsatisfaction at the idea of taking a complacent-looking fool down a peg,\nbut it is just as possible he did not know at the time that his stray\nshot had hit. He had thrown it as a boy throws a stone at a bird. And it\nnot only demolished a foolish, happy conceit, but it wounded. It touched\nJessie grossly.\n\nShe did not hear it, he concluded from her subsequent bearing; but\nduring the supper they had in the little private dining-room, though\nshe talked cheerfully, he was preoccupied. Whiffs of indistinct\nconversation, and now and then laughter, came in from the inn parlor\nthrough the pelargoniums in the open window. Hoopdriver felt it must\nall be in the same strain,--at her expense and his. He answered her\nabstractedly. She was tired, she said, and presently went to her room.\nMr. Hoopdriver, in his courtly way, opened the door for her and bowed\nher out. He stood listening and fearing some new offence as she went\nupstairs, and round the bend where the barometer hung beneath the\nstuffed birds. Then he went back to the room, and stood on the hearthrug\nbefore the paper fireplace ornament. \"Cads!\" he said in a scathing\nundertone, as a fresh burst of laughter came floating in. All through\nsupper he had been composing stinging repartee, a blistering speech of\ndenunciation to be presently delivered. He would rate them as a nobleman\nshould: \"Call themselves Englishmen, indeed, and insult a woman!\" he\nwould say; take the names and addresses perhaps, threaten to speak to\nthe Lord of the Manor, promise to let them hear from him again, and so\nout with consternation in his wake. It really ought to be done.\n\n\"Teach 'em better,\" he said fiercely, and tweaked his moustache\npainfully. What was it? He revived the objectionable remark for his own\nexasperation, and then went over the heads of his speech again.\n\nHe coughed, made three steps towards the door, then stopped and went\nback to the hearthrug. He wouldn't--after all. Yet was he not a Knight\nErrant? Should such men go unreproved, unchecked, by wandering baronets\nincognito? Magnanimity? Look at it in that way? Churls beneath one's\nnotice? No; merely a cowardly subterfuge. He WOULD after all.\n\nSomething within him protested that he was a hot-headed ass even as he\nwent towards the door again. But he only went on the more resolutely. He\ncrossed the hall, by the bar, and entered the room from which the remark\nhad proceeded. He opened the door abruptly and stood scowling on them\nin the doorway. \"You'll only make a mess of it,\" remarked the internal\nsceptic. There were five men in the room altogether: a fat person,\nwith a long pipe and a great number of chins, in an armchair by the\nfireplace, who wished Mr. Hoopdriver a good evening very affably; a\nyoung fellow smoking a cutty and displaying crossed legs with gaiters;\na little, bearded man with a toothless laugh; a middle-aged, comfortable\nman with bright eyes, who wore a velveteen jacket; and a fair young man,\nvery genteel in a yellowish-brown ready-made suit and a white tie.\n\n\"H'm,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, looking very stern and harsh. And then in a\nforbidding tone, as one who consented to no liberties, \"Good evening.\"\n\n\"Very pleasant day we've been 'aving,\" said the fair young man with the\nwhite tie.\n\n\"Very,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, slowly; and taking a brown armchair, he\nplanted it with great deliberation where he faced the fireplace, and sat\ndown. Let's see--how did that speech begin?\n\n\"Very pleasant roads about here,\" said the fair young man with the white\ntie.\n\n\"Very,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, eyeing him darkly. Have to begin somehow.\n\"The roads about here are all right, and the weather about here is\nall right, but what I've come in here to say is--there's some damned\nunpleasant people--damned unpleasant people!\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said the young man with the gaiters, apparently making a mental\ninventory of his pearl buttons as he spoke. \"How's that?\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver put his hands on his knees and stuck out his elbows with\nextreme angularity. In his heart he was raving at his idiotic folly at\nthus bearding these lions,--indisputably they WERE lions,--but he had\nto go through with it now. Heaven send, his breath, which was already\ngetting a trifle spasmodic, did not suddenly give out. He fixed his\neye on the face of the fat man with the chins, and spoke in a low,\nimpressive voice. \"I came here, sir,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, and paused to\ninflate his cheeks, \"with a lady.\"\n\n\"Very nice lady,\" said the man with the gaiters, putting his head on one\nside to admire a pearl button that had been hiding behind the curvature\nof his calf. \"Very nice lady indeed.\"\n\n\"I came here,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, \"with a lady.\"\n\n\"We saw you did, bless you,\" said the fat man with the chins, in\na curious wheezy voice. \"I don't see there's anything so very\nextraordinary in that. One 'ud think we hadn't eyes.\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver coughed. \"I came, here, sir--\"\n\n\"We've 'eard that,\" said the little man with the beard, sharply and went\noff into an amiable chuckle. \"We know it by 'art,\" said the little man,\nelaborating the point.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver temporarily lost his thread. He glared malignantly at the\nlittle man with the beard, and tried to recover his discourse. A pause.\n\n\"You were saying,\" said the fair young man with the white tie, speaking\nvery politely, \"that you came here with a lady.\"\n\n\"A lady,\" meditated the gaiter gazer.\n\nThe man in velveteen, who was looking from one speaker to another with\nkeen, bright eyes, now laughed as though a point had been scored, and\nstimulated Mr. Hoopdriver to speak, by fixing him with an expectant\nregard.\n\n\"Some dirty cad,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, proceeding with his discourse,\nand suddenly growing extremely fierce, \"made a remark as we went by this\ndoor.\"\n\n\"Steady on!\" said the old gentleman with many chins. \"Steady on! Don't\nyou go a-calling us names, please.\"\n\n\"One minute!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"It wasn't I began calling names.\"\n(\"Who did?\" said the man with the chins.) \"I'm not calling any of you\ndirty cads. Don't run away with that impression. Only some person in\nthis room made a remark that showed he wasn't fit to wipe boots on,\nand, with all due deference to such gentlemen as ARE gentlemen\" (Mr.\nHoopdriver looked round for moral support), \"I want to know which it\nwas.\"\n\n\"Meanin'?\" said the fair young man in the white tie.\n\n\"That I'm going to wipe my boots on 'im straight away,\" said Mr.\nHoopdriver, reverting to anger, if with a slight catch in his\nthroat--than which threat of personal violence nothing had been further\nfrom his thoughts on entering the room. He said this because he could\nthink of nothing else to say, and stuck out his elbows truculently to\nhide the sinking of his heart. It is curious how situations run away\nwith us.\n\n\"'Ullo, Charlie!\" said the little man, and \"My eye!\" said the owner of\nthe chins. \"You're going to wipe your boots on 'im?\" said the fair young\nman, in a tone of mild surprise.\n\n\"I am,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, with emphatic resolution, and glared in the\nyoung man's face.\n\n\"That's fair and reasonable,\" said the man in the velveteen jacket; \"if\nyou can.\"\n\nThe interest of the meeting seemed transferred to the young man in the\nwhite tic. \"Of course, if you can't find out which it is, I suppose\nyou're prepared to wipe your boots in a liberal way on everybody in the\nroom,\" said this young man, in the same tone of impersonal question.\n\"This gentleman, the champion lightweight--\"\n\n\"Own up, Charlie,\" said the young man with the gaiters, looking up for a\nmoment. \"And don't go a-dragging in your betters. It's fair and square.\nYou can't get out of it.\"\n\n\"Was it this--gent?\" began Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Of course,\" said the young man in the white tie, \"when it comes to\ntalking of wiping boots--\"\n\n\"I'm not talking; I'm going to do it,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\nHe looked round at the meeting. They were no longer antagonists; they\nwere spectators. He would have to go through with it now. But this tone\nof personal aggression on the maker of the remark had somehow got rid of\nthe oppressive feeling of Hoopdriver contra mundum. Apparently, he would\nhave to fight someone. Would he get a black eye? Would he get very much\nhurt? Pray goodness it wasn't that sturdy chap in the gaiters! Should\nhe rise and begin? What would she think if he brought a black eye to\nbreakfast to-morrow? \"Is this the man?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, with a\nbusiness-like calm, and arms more angular than ever.\n\n\"Eat 'im!\" said the little man with the beard; \"eat 'im straight orf.\"\n\n\"Steady on!\" said the young man in the white tie. \"Steady on a minute.\nIf I did happen to say--\"\n\n\"You did, did you?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Backing out of it, Charlie?\" said the young man with the gaiters.\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said Charlie. \"Surely we can pass a bit of a joke--\"\n\n\"I'm going to teach you to keep your jokes to yourself,\" said Mr.\nHoopdriver.\n\n\"Bray-vo!\" said the shepherd of the flock of chins.\n\n\"Charlie IS a bit too free with his jokes,\" said the little man with the\nbeard.\n\n\"It's downright disgusting,\" said Hoopdriver, falling back upon his\nspeech. \"A lady can't ride a bicycle in a country road, or wear a dress\na little out of the ordinary, but every dirty little greaser must needs\ngo shouting insults--\"\n\n\"_I_ didn't know the young lady would hear what I said,\" said Charlie.\n\"Surely one can speak friendly to one's friends. How was I to know the\ndoor was open--\"\n\nHoopdriver began to suspect that his antagonist was, if possible, more\nseriously alarmed at the prospect of violence than himself, and his\nspirits rose again. These chaps ought to have a thorough lesson. \"Of\nCOURSE you knew the door was open,\" he retorted indignantly. \"Of COURSE\nyou thought we should hear what you said. Don't go telling lies about\nit. It's no good your saying things like that. You've had your fun, and\nyou meant to have your fun. And I mean to make an example of you, Sir.\"\n\n\"Ginger beer,\" said the little man with the beard, in a confidential\ntone to the velveteen jacket, \"is regular up this 'ot weather. Bustin'\nits bottles it is everywhere.\"\n\n\"What's the good of scrapping about in a public-house?\" said Charlie,\nappealing to the company. \"A fair fight without interruptions, now, I\nWOULDN'T mind, if the gentleman's so disposed.\"\n\nEvidently the man was horribly afraid. Mr. Hoopdriver grew truculent.\n\n\"Where you like,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, \"jest wherever you like.\"\n\n\"You insulted the gent,\" said the man in velveteen.\n\n\"Don't be a bloomin' funk, Charlie,\" said the man in gaiters. \"Why, you\ngot a stone of him, if you got an ounce.\"\n\n\"What I say, is this,\" said the gentleman with the excessive chins,\ntrying to get a hearing by banging his chair arms. \"If Charlie goes\nsaying things, he ought to back 'em up. That's what I say. I don't mind\nhis sayin' such things 't all, but he ought to be prepared to back 'em\nup.\"\n\n\"I'll BACK 'em up all right,\" said Charlie, with extremely bitter\nemphasis on 'back.' \"If the gentleman likes to come Toosday week--\"\n\n\"Rot!\" chopped in Hoopdriver. \"Now.\"\n\n\"'Ear, 'ear,\" said the owner of the chins.\n\n\"Never put off till to-morrow, Charlie, what you can do to-day,\" said\nthe man in the velveteen coat.\n\n\"You got to do it, Charlie,\" said the man in gaiters. \"It's no good.\"\n\n\"It's like this,\" said Charlie, appealing to everyone except Hoopdriver.\n\"Here's me, got to take in her ladyship's dinner to-morrow night. How\nshould I look with a black eye? And going round with the carriage with a\nsplit lip?\"\n\n\"If you don't want your face sp'iled, Charlie, why don't you keep your\nmouth shut?\" said the person in gaiters.\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, driving it home with great fierceness.\n\"Why don't you shut your ugly mouth?\"\n\n\"It's as much as my situation's worth,\" protested Charlie.\n\n\"You should have thought of that before,\" said Hoopdriver.\n\n\"There's no occasion to be so thunderin' 'ot about it. I only meant\nthe thing joking,\" said Charlie. \"AS one gentleman to another, I'm very\nsorry if the gentleman's annoyed--\"\n\nEverybody began to speak at once. Mr. Hoopdriver twirled his moustache.\nHe felt that Charlie's recognition of his gentlemanliness was at any\nrate a redeeming feature. But it became his pose to ride hard and heavy\nover the routed foe. He shouted some insulting phrase over the tumult.\n\n\"You're regular abject,\" the man in gaiters was saying to Charlie.\n\nMore confusion.\n\n\"Only don't think I'm afraid,--not of a spindle-legged cuss like him,\"\nshouted Charlie. \"Because I ain't.\"\n\n\"Change of front,\" thought Hoopdriver, a little startled. \"Where are we\ngoing?\"\n\n\"Don't sit there and be abusive,\" said the man in velveteen. \"He's\noffered to hit you, and if I was him, I'd hit you now.\"\n\n\"All right, then,\" said Charlie, with a sudden change of front and\nspringing to his feet. \"If I must, I must. Now, then!\" At that,\nHoopdriver, the child of Fate, rose too, with a horrible sense that his\ninternal monitor was right. Things had taken a turn. He had made a mess\nof it, and now there was nothing for it, so far as he could see, but to\nhit the man at once. He and Charlie stood six feet apart, with a\ntable between, both very breathless and fierce. A vulgar fight in\na public-house, and with what was only too palpably a footman! Good\nHeavens! And this was the dignified, scornful remonstrance! How the\njuice had it all happened? Go round the table at him, I suppose. But\nbefore the brawl could achieve itself, the man in gaiters intervened.\n\"Not here,\" he said, stepping between the antagonists. Everyone was\nstanding up.\n\n\"Charlie's artful,\" said the little man with the beard.\n\n\"Buller's yard,\" said the man with the gaiters, taking the control\nof the entire affair with the easy readiness of an accomplished\npractitioner. \"If the gentleman DON'T mind.\" Buller's yard, it seemed,\nwas the very place. \"We'll do the thing regular and decent, if\nyou please.\" And before he completely realized what was happening,\nHoopdriver was being marched out through the back premises of the inn,\nto the first and only fight with fists that was ever to glorify his\nlife.\n\nOutwardly, so far as the intermittent moonlight showed, Mr. Hoopdriver\nwas quietly but eagerly prepared to fight. But inwardly he was a chaos\nof conflicting purposes. It was extraordinary how things happened. One\nremark had trod so closely on the heels of another, that he had had the\ngreatest difficulty in following the development of the business.\nHe distinctly remembered himself walking across from one room to the\nother,--a dignified, even an aristocratic figure, primed with considered\neloquence, intent upon a scathing remonstrance to these wretched yokels,\nregarding their manners. Then incident had flickered into incident until\nhere he was out in a moonlit lane,--a slight, dark figure in a group\nof larger, indistinct figures,--marching in a quiet, business-like way\ntowards some unknown horror at Buller's yard. Fists! It was astonishing.\nIt was terrible! In front of him was the pallid figure of Charles, and\nhe saw that the man in gaiters held Charles kindly but firmly by the\narm.\n\n\"It's blasted rot,\" Charles was saying, \"getting up a fight just for a\nthing like that; all very well for 'im. 'E's got 'is 'olidays; 'e 'asn't\nno blessed dinner to take up to-morrow night like I 'ave.--No need to\nnumb my arm, IS there?\"\n\nThey went into Buller's yard through gates. There were sheds in Buller's\nyard--sheds of mystery that the moonlight could not solve--a smell\nof cows, and a pump stood out clear and black, throwing a clear black\nshadow on the whitewashed wall. And here it was his face was to be\nbattered to a pulp. He knew this was the uttermost folly, to stand up\nhere and be pounded, but the way out of it was beyond his imagining. Yet\nafterwards--? Could he ever face her again? He patted his Norfolk jacket\nand took his ground with his back to the gate. How did one square? So?\nSuppose one were to turn and run even now, run straight back to the\ninn and lock himself into his bedroom? They couldn't make, him come\nout--anyhow. He could prosecute them for assault if they did. How did\none set about prosecuting for assault? He saw Charles, with his face\nghastly white under the moon, squaring in front of him.\n\nHe caught a blow on the arm and gave ground. Charles pressed him. Then\nhe hit with his right and with the violence of despair. It was a hit of\nhis own devising,--an impromptu,--but it chanced to coincide with the\nregulation hook hit at the head. He perceived with a leap of exultation\nthat the thing his fist had met was the jawbone of Charles. It was the\nsole gleam of pleasure he experienced during the fight, and it was quite\nmomentary. He had hardly got home upon Charles before he was struck\nin the chest and whirled backward. He had the greatest difficulty in\nkeeping his feet. He felt that his heart was smashed flat. \"Gord\ndarm!\" said somebody, dancing toe in hand somewhere behind him. As Mr.\nHoopdriver staggered, Charles gave a loud and fear-compelling cry. He\nseemed to tower over Hoopdriver in the moonlight. Both his fists were\nwhirling. It was annihilation coming--no less. Mr. Hoopdriver ducked\nperhaps and certainly gave ground to the right, hit, and missed. Charles\nswept round to the left, missing generously. A blow glanced over Mr.\nHoopdriver's left ear, and the flanking movement was completed.\nAnother blow behind the ear. Heaven and earth spun furiously round\nMr. Hoopdriver, and then he became aware of a figure in a light suit\nshooting violently through an open gate into the night. The man in\ngaiters sprang forward past Mr. Hoopdriver, but too late to intercept\nthe fugitive. There were shouts, laughter, and Mr. Hoopdriver, still\nsolemnly squaring, realized the great and wonderful truth--Charles had\nfled. He, Hoopdriver, had fought and, by all the rules of war, had won.\n\n\"That was a pretty cut under the jaw you gave him,\" the toothless little\nman with the beard was remarking in an unexpectedly friendly manner.\n\n\"The fact of it is,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, sitting beside the road to\nSalisbury, and with the sound of distant church bells in his cars, \"I\nhad to give the fellow a lesson; simply had to.\"\n\n\"It seems so dreadful that you should have to knock people about,\" said\nJessie.\n\n\"These louts get unbearable,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"If now and then we\ndidn't give them a lesson,--well, a lady cyclist in the roads would be\nan impossibility.\"\n\n\"I suppose every woman shrinks from violence,\" said Jessie. \"I\nsuppose men ARE braver--in a way--than women. It seems to me-I can't\nimagine--how one could bring oneself to face a roomful of rough\ncharacters, pick out the bravest, and give him an exemplary thrashing.\nI quail at the idea. I thought only Ouida's guardsmen did things like\nthat.\"\n\n\"It was nothing more than my juty--as a gentleman,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"But to walk straight into the face of danger!\"\n\n\"It's habit,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, quite modestly, flicking off a\nparticle of cigarette ash that had settled on his knee.\n\n\n\n\nXXXIII. THE ABASEMENT OF MR. HOOPDRIVER\n\nOn Monday morning the two fugitives found themselves breakfasting at the\nGolden Pheasant in Blandford. They were in the course of an elaborate\ndoubling movement through Dorsetshire towards Ringwood, where Jessie\nanticipated an answer from her schoolmistress friend. By this time they\nhad been nearly sixty hours together, and you will understand that Mr.\nHoopdriver's feelings had undergone a considerable intensification and\ndevelopment. At first Jessie had been only an impressionist sketch\nupon his mind, something feminine, active, and dazzling, something\nemphatically \"above\" him, cast into his company by a kindly fate.\nHis chief idea, at the outset, as you know, had been to live up to\nher level, by pretending to be more exceptional, more wealthy, better\neducated, and, above all, better born than he was. His knowledge of the\nfeminine mind was almost entirely derived from the young ladies he had\nmet in business, and in that class (as in military society and among\ngentlemen's servants) the good old tradition of a brutal social\nexclusiveness is still religiously preserved. He had an almost\nintolerable dread of her thinking him a I bounder.' Later he began\nto perceive the distinction of her idiosyncracies. Coupled with a\nmagnificent want of experience was a splendid enthusiasm for abstract\nviews of the most advanced description, and her strength of conviction\ncompletely carried Hoopdriver away. She was going to Live her Own Life,\nwith emphasis, and Mr. Hoopdriver was profoundly stirred to similar\nresolves. So soon as he grasped the tenor of her views, he perceived\nthat he himself had thought as much from his earliest years. \"Of\ncourse,\" he remarked, in a flash of sexual pride, \"a man is freer than a\nwoman. End in the Colonies, y'know, there isn't half the Conventionality\nyou find in society in this country.\"\n\nHe made one or two essays in the display of unconventionality, and\nwas quite unaware that he impressed her as a narrow-minded person. He\nsuppressed the habits of years and made no proposal to go to church.\nHe discussed church-going in a liberal spirit. \"It's jest a habit,\" he\nsaid, \"jest a custom. I don't see what good it does you at all, really.\"\nAnd he made a lot of excellent jokes at the chimney-pot hat, jokes he\nhad read in the Globe 'turnovers' on that subject. But he showed his\ngentle breeding by keeping his gloves on all through the Sunday's ride,\nand ostentatiously throwing away more than half a cigarette when they\npassed a church whose congregation was gathering for afternoon service.\nHe cautiously avoided literary topics, except by way of compliment,\nseeing that she was presently to be writing books.\n\nIt was on Jessie's initiative that they attended service in the\nold-fashioned gallery of Blandford church. Jessie's conscience, I may\nperhaps tell you, was now suffering the severest twinges. She perceived\nclearly that things were not working out quite along the lines she had\ndesigned-. She had read her Olive Schreiner and George Egerton, and so\nforth, with all the want of perfect comprehension of one who is still\nemotionally a girl. She knew the thing to do was to have a flat and\nto go to the British Museum and write leading articles for the daily\npapers until something better came along. If Bechamel (detestable\nperson) had kept his promises, instead of behaving with unspeakable\nhorridness, all would have been well. Now her only hope was that\nliberal-minded woman, Miss Mergle, who, a year ago, had sent her out,\nhighly educated, into the world. Miss Mergle had told her at parting\nto live fearlessly and truly, and had further given her a volume of\nEmerson's Essays and Motley's \"Dutch Republic,\" to help her through the\nrapids of adolescence.\n\nJessie's feelings for her stepmother's household at Surbiton amounted to\nan active detestation. There are no graver or more solemn women in the\nworld than these clever girls whose scholastic advancement has retarded\ntheir feminine coquetry. In spite of the advanced tone of 'Thomas\nPlantagenet's' antimarital novel, Jessie had speedily seen through that\namiable woman's amiable defences. The variety of pose necessitated by\nthe corps of 'Men' annoyed her to an altogether unreasonable degree. To\nreturn to this life of ridiculous unreality--unconditional capitulation\nto 'Conventionality' was an exasperating prospect. Yet what else was\nthere to do? You will understand, therefore, that at times she was moody\n(and Mr. Hoopdriver respectfully silent and attentive) and at times\ninclined to eloquent denunciation of the existing order of things. She\nwas a Socialist, Hoopdriver learnt, and he gave a vague intimation\nthat he went further, intending, thereby, no less than the horrors\nof anarchism. He would have owned up to the destruction of the Winter\nPalace indeed, had he had the faintest idea where the Winter Palace was,\nand had his assurance amounted to certainty that the Winter Palace was\ndestroyed. He agreed with her cordially that the position of women was\nintolerable, but checked himself on the' verge of the proposition that a\ngirl ought not to expect a fellow to hand down boxes for her when he was\ngetting the 'swap' from a customer. It was Jessie's preoccupation\nwith her own perplexities, no doubt, that delayed the unveiling of Mr.\nHoopdriver all through Saturday and Sunday. Once or twice, however,\nthere were incidents that put him about terribly--even questions that\nsavoured of suspicion.\n\nOn Sunday night, for no conceivable reason, an unwonted wakefulness\ncame upon him. Unaccountably he realised he was a contemptible liar,\nAll through the small hours of Monday he reviewed the tale of his\nfalsehoods, and when he tried to turn his mind from that, the financial\nproblem suddenly rose upon him. He heard two o'clock strike, and three.\nIt is odd how unhappy some of us are at times, when we are at our\nhappiest.\n\n\n\n\nXXXIV.\n\n\"Good morning, Madam,\" said Hoopdriver, as Jessie came into the\nbreakfast room of the Golden Pheasant on Monday morning, and he smiled,\nbowed, rubbed his hands together, and pulled out a chair for her, and\nrubbed his hands again.\n\nShe stopped abruptly, with a puzzled expression on her face. \"Where HAVE\nI seen that before?\" she said.\n\n\"The chair?\" said Hoopdriver, flushing.\n\n\"No--the attitude.\"\n\nShe came forward and shook hands with him, looking the while curiously\ninto his face. \"And--Madam?\"\n\n\"It's a habit,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, guiltily. \"A bad habit. Calling\nladies Madam. You must put it down to our colonial roughness. Out there\nup country--y'know--the ladies--so rare--we call 'em all Madam.\"\n\n\"You HAVE some funny habits, brother Chris,\" said Jessie. \"Before you\nsell your diamond shares and go into society, as you say, and stand\nfor Parliament--What a fine thing it is to be a man!--you must cure\nyourself. That habit of bowing as you do, and rubbing your hands, and\nlooking expectant.\"\n\n\"It's a habit.\"\n\n\"I know. But I don't think it a good one. You don't mind my telling\nyou?\"\n\n\"Not a bit. I'm grateful.\"\n\n\"I'm blessed or afflicted with a trick of observation,\" said Jessie,\nlooking at the breakfast table. Mr. Hoopdriver put his hand to his\nmoustache and then, thinking this might be another habit, checked his\narm and stuck his hand into his pocket. He felt juiced awkward, to use\nhis private formula. Jessie's eye wandered to the armchair, where a\npiece of binding was loose, and, possibly to carry out her theory of an\nobservant disposition, she turned and asked him for a pin.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver's hand fluttered instinctively to his lappel, and there,\nplanted by habit, were a couple of stray pins he had impounded.\n\n\"What an odd place to put pins!\" exclaimed Jessie, taking it.\n\n\"It's 'andy,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"I saw a chap in a shop do it once.\"\n\n\"You must have a careful disposition,\" she said, over her shoulder,\nkneeling down to the chair.\n\n\"In the centre of Africa--up country, that is--one learns to value\npins,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, after a perceptible pause. \"There weren't\nover many pins in Africa. They don't lie about on the ground there.\" His\nface was now in a fine, red glow. Where would the draper break out next?\nHe thrust his hands into his coat pockets, then took one out again,\nfurtively removed the second pin and dropped it behind him gently. It\nfell with a loud 'ping' on the fender. Happily she made no remark, being\npreoccupied with the binding of the chair.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver, instead of sitting down, went up to the table and stood\nagainst it, with his finger-tips upon the cloth. They were keeping\nbreakfast a tremendous time. He took up his rolled serviette looked\nclosely and scrutinisingly at the ring, then put his hand under the fold\nof the napkin and examined the texture, and put the thing down again.\nThen he had a vague impulse to finger his hollow wisdom tooth--happily\nchecked. He suddenly discovered he was standing as if the table was a\ncounter, and sat down forthwith. He drummed with his hand on the table.\nHe felt dreadfully hot and self-conscious.\n\n\"Breakfast is late,\" said Jessie, standing up.\n\n\"Isn't it?\"\n\nConversation was slack. Jessie wanted to know the distance to Ringwood.\nThen silence fell again.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver, very uncomfortable and studying an easy bearing, looked\nagain at the breakfast things and then idly lifted the corner of the\ntablecloth on the ends of his fingers, and regarded it. \"Fifteen three,\"\nhe thought, privately.\n\n\"Why do you do that?\" said Jessie.\n\n\"WHAT?\" said Hoopdriver, dropping the tablecloth convulsively.\n\n\"Look at the cloth like that. I saw you do it yesterday, too.\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver's face became quite a bright red. He began pulling his\nmoustache nervously. \"I know,\" he said. \"I know. It's a queer habit,\nI know. But out there, you know, there's native servants, you know,\nand--it's a queer thing to talk about--but one has to look at things to\nsee, don't y'know, whether they're quite clean or not. It's got to be a\nhabit.\"\n\n\"How odd!\" said Jessie.\n\n\"Isn't it?\" mumbled Hoopdriver.\n\n\"If I were a Sherlock Holmes,\" said Jessie, \"I suppose I could have told\nyou were a colonial from little things like that. But anyhow, I guessed\nit, didn't I?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hoopdriver, in a melancholy tone, \"you guessed it.\"\n\nWhy not seize the opportunity for a neat confession, and add, \"unhappily\nin this case you guessed wrong.\" Did she suspect? Then, at the\npsychological moment, the girl bumped the door open with her tray and\nbrought in the coffee and scrambled eggs.\n\n\"I am rather lucky with my intuitions, sometimes,\" said Jessie.\n\nRemorse that had been accumulating in his mind for two days surged to\nthe top of his mind. What a shabby liar he was!\n\nAnd, besides, he must sooner or later, inevitably, give himself away.\n\n\n\n\nXXXV.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver helped the eggs and then, instead of beginning, sat with\nhis cheek on his hand, watching Jessie pour out the coffee. His ears\nwere a bright red, and his eyes bright. He took his coffee cup clumsily,\ncleared his throat, suddenly leant back in his chair, and thrust his\nhands deep into his pockets. \"I'll do it,\" he said aloud.\n\n\"Do what?\" said Jessie, looking up in surprise over the coffee pot. She\nwas just beginning her scrambled egg.\n\n\"Own up.\"\n\n\"Own what?\"\n\n\"Miss Milton--I'm a liar.\" He put his head on one side and regarded her\nwith a frown of tremendous resolution. Then in measured accents,\nand moving his head slowly from side to side, he announced, \"Ay'm a\nderaper.\"\n\n\"You're a draper? I thought--\"\n\n\"You thought wrong. But it's bound to come up. Pins, attitude,\nhabits--It's plain enough.\n\n\"I'm a draper's assistant let out for a ten-days holiday. Jest a\ndraper's assistant. Not much, is it? A counter-jumper.\"\n\n\"A draper's assistant isn't a position to be ashamed of,\" she said,\nrecovering, and not quite understanding yet what this all meant.\n\n\"Yes, it is,\" he said, \"for a man, in this country now. To be just\nanother man's hand, as I am. To have to wear what clothes you are told,\nand go to church to please customers, and work--There's no other kind of\nmen stand such hours. A drunken bricklayer's a king to it.\"\n\n\"But why are you telling me this now?\"\n\n\"It's important you should know at once.\"\n\n\"But, Mr. Benson--\"\n\n\"That isn't all. If you don't mind my speaking about myself a bit,\nthere's a few things I'd like to tell you. I can't go on deceiving you.\nMy name's not Benson. WHY I told you Benson, I DON'T know. Except that\nI'm a kind of fool. Well--I wanted somehow to seem more than I was. My\nname's Hoopdriver.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"And that about South Africa--and that lion.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Lies.\"\n\n\"Lies!\"\n\n\"And the discovery of diamonds on the ostrich farm. Lies too. And all the\nreminiscences of the giraffes--lies too. I never rode on no giraffes.\nI'd be afraid.\"\n\nHe looked at her with a kind of sullen satisfaction. He had eased his\nconscience, anyhow. She regarded him in infinite perplexity. This was a\nnew side altogether to the man. \"But WHY,\" she began.\n\n\"Why did I tell you such things? _I_ don't know. Silly sort of chap, I\nexpect. I suppose I wanted to impress you. But somehow, now, I want you\nto know the truth.\"\n\nSilence. Breakfast untouched. \"I thought I'd tell you,\" said Mr.\nHoopdriver. \"I suppose it's snobbishness and all that kind of thing, as\nmuch as anything. I lay awake pretty near all last night thinking about\nmyself; thinking what a got-up imitation of a man I was, and all that.\"\n\n\"And you haven't any diamond shares, and you are not going into\nParliament, and you're not--\"\n\n\"All Lies,\" said Hoopdriver, in a sepulchral voice. \"Lies from beginning\nto end. 'Ow I came to tell 'em I DON'T know.\"\n\nShe stared at him blankly.\n\n\"I never set eyes on Africa in my life,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, completing\nthe confession. Then he pulled his right hand from his pocket, and with\nthe nonchalance of one to whom the bitterness of death is passed, began\nto drink his coffee.\n\n\"It's a little surprising,\" began Jessie, vaguely.\n\n\"Think it over,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"I'm sorry from the bottom of my\nheart.\"\n\nAnd then breakfast proceeded in silence. Jessie ate very little, and\nseemed lost in thought. Mr. Hoopdriver was so overcome by contrition and\nanxiety that he consumed an extraordinarily large breakfast out of pure\nnervousness, and ate his scrambled eggs for the most part with the\nspoon that belonged properly to the marmalade. His eyes were gloomily\ndowncast. She glanced at him through her eyelashes. Once or twice she\nstruggled with laughter, once or twice she seemed to be indignant.\n\n\"I don't know what to think,\" she said at last. \"I don't know what\nto make of you--brother Chris. I thought, do you know? that you were\nperfectly honest. And somehow--\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I think so still.\"\n\n\"Honest--with all those lies!\"\n\n\"I wonder.\"\n\n\"I don't,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"I'm fair ashamed of myself. But\nanyhow--I've stopped deceiving you.\"\n\n\"I THOUGHT,\" said the Young Lady in Grey, \"that story of the lion--\"\n\n\"Lord!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"Don't remind me of THAT.\"\n\n\"I thought, somehow, I FELT, that the things you said didn't ring quite\ntrue.\" She suddenly broke out in laughter, at the expression of his\nface. \"Of COURSE you are honest,\" she said. \"How could I ever doubt it?\nAs if _I_ had never pretended! I see it all now.\"\n\nAbruptly she rose, and extended her hand across the breakfast things. He\nlooked at her doubtfully, and saw the dancing friendliness in her eyes.\nHe scarcely understood at first. He rose, holding the marmalade spoon,\nand took her proffered hand with abject humility. \"Lord,\" he broke out,\n\"if you aren't enough--but there!\"\n\n\"I see it all now.\" A brilliant inspiration had suddenly obscured her\nhumour. She sat down suddenly, and he sat down too. \"You did it,\"\nshe said, \"because you wanted to help me. And you thought I was too\nConventional to take help from one I might think my social inferior.\"\n\n\"That was partly it,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"How you misunderstood me!\" she said.\n\n\"You don't mind?\"\n\n\"It was noble of you. But I am sorry,\" she said, \"you should think me\nlikely to be ashamed of you because you follow a decent trade.\"\n\n\"I didn't know at first, you see,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\nAnd he submitted meekly to a restoration of his self-respect. He was\nas useful a citizen as could be,--it was proposed and carried,--and\nhis lying was of the noblest. And so the breakfast concluded much more\nhappily than his brightest expectation, and they rode out of ruddy\nlittle Blandford as though no shadow of any sort had come between them.\n\n\n\n\nXXXVI.\n\nAs they were sitting by the roadside among the pine trees half-way up a\nstretch of hill between Wimborne and Ringwood, however, Mr. Hoopdriver\nreopened the question of his worldly position.\n\n\"Ju think,\" he began abruptly, removing a meditative cigarette from his\nmouth, \"that a draper's shopman IS a decent citizen?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"When he puts people off with what they don't quite want, for instance?\"\n\n\"Need he do that?\"\n\n\"Salesmanship,\" said Hoopdriver. \"Wouldn't get a crib if he\ndidn't.--It's no good your arguing. It's not a particularly honest nor a\nparticularly useful trade; it's not very high up; there's no freedom\nand no leisure--seven to eight-thirty every day in the week; don't leave\nmuch edge to live on, does it?--real workmen laugh at us and educated\nchaps like bank clerks and solicitors' clerks look down on us. You\nlook respectable outside, and inside you are packed in dormitories like\nconvicts, fed on bread and butter and bullied like slaves. You're\njust superior enough to feel that you're not superior. Without capital\nthere's no prospects; one draper in a hundred don't even earn enough to\nmarry on; and if he DOES marry, his G.V. can just use him to black boots\nif he likes, and he daren't put his back up. That's drapery! And you\ntell me to be contented. Would YOU be contented if you was a shop girl?\"\n\nShe did not answer. She looked at him with distress in her brown eyes,\nand he remained gloomily in possession of the field.\n\nPresently he spoke. \"I've been thinking,\" he said, and stopped.\n\nShe turned her face, resting her cheek on the palm of her hand. There\nwas a light in her eyes that made the expression of them tender. Mr.\nHoopdriver had not looked in her face while he had talked. He had\nregarded the grass, and pointed his remarks with redknuckled hands held\nopen and palms upwards. Now they hung limply over his knees.\n\n\"Well?\" she said.\n\n\"I was thinking it this morning,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Of course it's silly.\" \"Well?\"\n\n\"It's like this. I'm twenty-three, about. I had my schooling all right\nto fifteen, say. Well, that leaves me eight years behind.--Is it too\nlate? I wasn't so backward. I did algebra, and Latin up to auxiliary\nverbs, and French genders. I got a kind of grounding.\"\n\n\"And now you mean, should you go on working?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"That's it. You can't do much at drapery\nwithout capital, you know. But if I could get really educated. I've\nthought sometimes...\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said the Young Lady in Grey.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver was surprised to see it in that light. \"You think?\" he\nsaid. \"Of course. You are a Man. You are free--\" She warmed. \"I wish I\nwere you to have the chance of that struggle.\"\n\n\"Am I Man ENOUGH?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver aloud, but addressing himself.\n\"There's that eight years,\" he said to her.\n\n\"You can make it up. What you call educated men--They're not going on.\nYou can catch them. They are quite satisfied. Playing golf, and thinking\nof clever things to say to women like my stepmother, and dining out.\nYou're in front of them already in one thing. They think they know\neverything. You don't. And they know such little things.\"\n\n\"Lord!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"How you encourage a fellow!\"\n\n\"If I could only help you,\" she said, and left an eloquent hiatus. He\nbecame pensive again.\n\n\"It's pretty evident you don't think much of a draper,\" he said\nabruptly.\n\nAnother interval. \"Hundreds of men,\" she said, \"have come from the very\nlowest ranks of life. There was Burns, a ploughman; and Hugh Miller, a\nstonemason; and plenty of others. Dodsley was a footman--\"\n\n\"But drapers! We're too sort of shabby genteel to rise. Our coats and\ncuffs might get crumpled--\"\n\n\"Wasn't there a Clarke who wrote theology? He was a draper.\"\n\n\"There was one started a sewing cotton, the only one I ever heard tell\nof.\"\n\n\"Have you ever read 'Hearts Insurgent'?\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. He did not wait for her context, but\nsuddenly broke out with an account of his literary requirements. \"The\nfact is--I've read precious little. One don't get much of a chance,\nsituated as I am. We have a library at business, and I've gone through\nthat. Most Besant I've read, and a lot of Mrs. Braddon's and Rider\nHaggard and Marie Corelli--and, well--a Ouida or so. They're good\nstories, of course, and first-class writers, but they didn't seem to\nhave much to do with me. But there's heaps of books one hears talked\nabout, I HAVEN'T read.\"\n\n\"Don't you read any other books but novels?\"\n\n\"Scarcely ever. One gets tired after business, and you can't get the\nbooks. I have been to some extension lectures, of course, 'Lizabethan\nDramatists,' it was, but it seemed a little high-flown, you know. And I\nwent and did wood-carving at the same place. But it didn't seem leading\nnowhere, and I cut my thumb and chucked it.\"\n\nHe made a depressing spectacle, with his face anxious and his hands\nlimp. \"It makes me sick,\" he said, \"to think how I've been fooled with.\nMy old schoolmaster ought to have a juiced HIDING. He's a thief. He\npretended to undertake to make a man of me, and be's stole twenty-three\nyears of my life, filled me up with scraps and sweepings. Here I am! I\ndon't KNOW anything, and I can't DO anything, and all the learning time\nis over.\"\n\n\"Is it?\" she said; but he did not seem to hear her. \"My o' people didn't\nknow any better, and went and paid thirty pounds premium--thirty pounds\ndown to have me made THIS. The G.V. promised to teach me the trade, and\nhe never taught me anything but to be a Hand. It's the way they do with\ndraper's apprentices. If every swindler was locked up--well, you'd have\nnowhere to buy tape and cotton. It's all very well to bring up Burns and\nthose chaps, but I'm not that make. Yet I'm not such muck that I might\nnot have been better--with teaching. I wonder what the chaps who sneer\nand laugh at such as me would be if they'd been fooled about as I've\nbeen. At twenty-three--it's a long start.\"\n\nHe looked up with a wintry smile, a sadder and wiser Hoopdriver indeed\nthan him of the glorious imaginings. \"It's YOU done this,\" he said.\n\"You're real. And it sets me thinking what I really am, and what I might\nhave been. Suppose it was all different--\"\n\n\"MAKE it different.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"WORK. Stop playing at life. Face it like a man.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Hoopdriver, glancing at her out of the corners of his eyes.\n\"And even then--\"\n\n\"No! It's not much good. I'm beginning too late.\"\n\nAnd there, in blankly thoughtful silence, that conversation ended.\n\n\n\n\nXXXVII. IN THE NEW FOREST\n\nAt Ringwood they lunched, and Jessie met with a disappointment. There\nwas no letter for her at the post office. Opposite the hotel, The\nChequered Career, was a machine shop with a conspicuously second-hand\nMarlborough Club tandem tricycle displayed in the window, together with\nthe announcement that bicycles and tricycles were on hire within. The\nestablishment was impressed on Mr. Hoopdriver's mind by the proprietor's\naction in coming across the road and narrowly inspecting their machines.\nHis action revived a number of disagreeable impressions, but, happily,\ncame to nothing. While they were still lunching, a tall clergyman,\nwith a heated face, entered the room and sat down at the table next to\ntheirs. He was in a kind of holiday costume; that is to say, he had a\nmore than usually high collar, fastened behind and rather the worse for\nthe weather, and his long-tail coat had been replaced by a black jacket\nof quite remarkable brevity. He had faded brown shoes on his feet, his\ntrouser legs were grey with dust, and he wore a hat of piebald straw\nin the place of the customary soft felt. He was evidently socially\ninclined.\n\n\"A most charming day, sir,\" he said, in a ringing tenor.\n\n\"Charming,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, over a portion of pie.\n\n\"You are, I perceive, cycling through this delightful country,\" said the\nclergyman.\n\n\"Touring,\" explained Mr. Hoopdriver. \"I can imagine that, with a\nproperly oiled machine, there can be no easier nor pleasanter way of\nseeing the country.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver; \"it isn't half a bad way of getting about.\"\n\n\"For a young and newly married couple, a tandem bicycle must be, I\nshould imagine, a delightful bond.\"\n\n\"Quite so,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, reddening a little.\n\n\"Do you ride a tandem?\"\n\n\"No--we're separate,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"The motion through the air is indisputably of a very exhilarating\ndescription.\" With that decision, the clergyman turned to give his\norders to the attendant, in a firm, authoritative voice, for a cup of\ntea, two gelatine lozenges, bread and butter, salad, and pie to follow.\n\"The gelatine lozenges I must have. I require them to precipitate the\ntannin in my tea,\" he remarked to the room at large, and folding his\nhands, remained for some time with his chin thereon, staring fixedly at\na little picture over Mr. Hoopdriver's head.\n\n\"I myself am a cyclist,\" said the clergyman, descending suddenly upon\nMr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Indeed!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, attacking the moustache. \"What machine,\nmay I ask?\"\n\n\"I have recently become possessed of a tricycle. A bicycle is, I\nregret to say, considered too--how shall I put it?--flippant by my\nparishioners. So I have a tricycle. I have just been hauling it hither.\"\n\n\"Hauling!\" said Jessie, surprised.\n\n\"With a shoe lace. And partly carrying it on my back.\"\n\nThe pause was unexpected. Jessie had some trouble with a crumb. Mr.\nHoopdriver's face passed through several phases of surprise. Then he saw\nthe explanation. \"Had an accident?\"\n\n\"I can hardly call it an accident. The wheels suddenly refused to go\nround. I found myself about five miles from here with an absolutely\nimmobile machine.\"\n\n\"Ow!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, trying to seem intelligent, and Jessie\nglanced at this insane person.\n\n\"It appears,\" said the clergyman, satisfied with the effect he had\ncreated, \"that my man carefully washed out the bearings with paraffin,\nand let the machine dry without oiling it again. The consequence was\nthat they became heated to a considerable temperature and jammed. Even\nat the outset the machine ran stiffly as well as noisily, and I, being\ninclined to ascribe this stiffness to my own lassitude, merely redoubled\nmy exertions.\"\n\n\"'Ot work all round,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"You could scarcely put it more appropriately. It is my rule of life to\ndo whatever I find to do with all my might. I believe, indeed, that the\nbearings became red hot. Finally one of the wheels jammed together. A\nside wheel it was, so that its stoppage necessitated an inversion of the\nentire apparatus,--an inversion in which I participated.\"\n\n\"Meaning, that you went over?\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, suddenly much\namused.\n\n\"Precisely. And not brooking my defeat, I suffered repeatedly. You may\nunderstand, perhaps, a natural impatience. I expostulated--playfully,\nof course. Happily the road was not overlooked. Finally, the entire\napparatus became rigid, and I abandoned the unequal contest. For all\npractical purposes the tricycle was no better than a heavy chair without\ncastors. It was a case of hauling or carrying.\"\n\nThe clergyman's nutriment appeared in the doorway.\n\n\"Five miles,\" said the clergyman. He began at once to eat bread and\nbutter vigorously. \"Happily,\" he said, \"I am an eupeptic, energetic sort\nof person on principle. I would all men were likewise.\"\n\n\"It's the best way,\" agreed Mr. Hoopdriver, and the conversation gave\nprecedence to bread and butter.\n\n\"Gelatine,\" said the clergyman, presently, stirring his tea\nthoughtfully, \"precipitates the tannin in one's tea and renders it easy\nof digestion.\"\n\n\"That's a useful sort of thing to know,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"You are altogether welcome,\" said the clergyman, biting generously at\ntwo pieces of bread and butter folded together.\n\nIn the afternoon our two wanderers rode on at an easy pace towards\nStoney Cross. Conversation languished, the topic of South Africa being\nin abeyance. Mr. Hoopdriver was silenced by disagreeable thoughts. He\nhad changed the last sovereign at Ringwood. The fact had come upon him\nsuddenly. Now too late he was reflecting upon his resources. There was\ntwenty pounds or more in the post office savings bank in Putney, but his\nbook was locked up in his box at the Antrobus establishment. Else this\ninfatuated man would certainly have surreptitiously withdrawn the entire\nsum in order to prolong these journeyings even for a few days. As it\nwas, the shadow of the end fell across his happiness. Strangely enough,\nin spite of his anxiety and the morning's collapse, he was still in a\ncurious emotional state that was certainly not misery. He was forgetting\nhis imaginings and posings, forgetting himself altogether in his growing\nappreciation of his companion. The most tangible trouble in his mind was\nthe necessity of breaking the matter to her.\n\nA long stretch up hill tired them long before Stoney Cross was reached,\nand they dismounted and sat under the shade of a little oak tree. Near\nthe crest the road looped on itself, so that, looking back, it sloped\nbelow them up to the right and then came towards them. About them grew\na rich heather with stunted oaks on the edge of a deep ditch along the\nroadside, and this road was sandy; below the steepness of the hill,\nhowever, it was grey and barred with shadows, for there the trees\nclustered thick and tall. Mr. Hoopdriver fumbled clumsily with his\ncigarettes.\n\n\"There's a thing I got to tell you,\" he said, trying to be perfectly\ncalm.\n\n\"Yes?\" she said.\n\n\"I'd like to jest discuss your plans a bit, y'know.\"\n\n\"I'm very unsettled,\" said Jessie. \"You are thinking of writing Books?\"\n\n\"Or doing journalism, or teaching, or something like that.\"\n\n\"And keeping yourself independent of your stepmother?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How long'd it take now, to get anything of that sort to do?\"\n\n\"I don't know at all. I believe there are a great many women journalists\nand sanitary inspectors, and black-and-white artists. But I suppose it\ntakes time. Women, you know, edit most papers nowadays, George Egerton\nsays. I ought, I suppose, to communicate with a literary agent.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Hoopdriver, \"it's very suitable work. Not being heavy\nlike the drapery.\"\n\n\"There's heavy brain labour, you must remember.\"\n\n\"That wouldn't hurt YOU,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, turning a compliment.\n\n\"It's like this,\" he said, ending a pause. \"It's a juiced nuisance\nalluding to these matters, but--we got very little more money.\"\n\nHe perceived that Jessie started, though he did not look at her. \"I was\ncounting, of course, on your friend's writing and your being able to\ntake some action to-day.\" 'Take some action' was a phrase he had learnt\nat his last 'swop.'\n\n\"Money,\" said Jessie. \"I didn't think of money.\"\n\n\"Hullo! Here's a tandem bicycle,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, abruptly, and\npointing with his cigarette.\n\nShe looked, and saw two little figures emerging from among the trees at\nthe foot of the slope. The riders were bowed sternly over their work and\nmade a gallant but unsuccessful attempt to take the rise. The machine\nwas evidently too highly geared for hill climbing, and presently the\nrearmost rider rose on his saddle and hopped off, leaving his companion\nto any fate he found proper. The foremost rider was a man unused to\nsuch machines and apparently undecided how to dismount. He wabbled a\nfew yards up the hill with a long tail of machine wabbling behind\nhim. Finally, he made an attempt to jump off as one does off a single\nbicycle, hit his boot against the backbone, and collapsed heavily,\nfalling on his shoulder.\n\nShe stood up. \"Dear me!\" she said. \"I hope he isn't hurt.\"\n\nThe second rider went to the assistance of the fallen man.\n\nHoopdriver stood up, too. The lank, shaky machine was lifted up and\nwheeled out of the way, and then the fallen rider, being assisted, got\nup slowly and stood rubbing his arm. No serious injury seemed to be\ndone to the man, and the couple presently turned their attention to the\nmachine by the roadside. They were not in cycling clothes Hoopdriver\nobserved. One wore the grotesque raiment for which the Cockney discovery\nof the game of golf seems indirectly blamable. Even at this distance the\nflopping flatness of his cap, the bright brown leather at the top of his\ncalves, and the chequering of his stockings were perceptible. The other,\nthe rear rider, was a slender little man in grey.\n\n\"Amatoors,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\nJessie stood staring, and a veil of thought dropped over her eyes. She\nno longer regarded the two men who were now tinkering at the machine\ndown below there.\n\n\"How much have you?\" she said.\n\nHe thrust his right hand into his pocket and produced six coins, counted\nthem with his left index finger, and held them out to her. \"Thirteen\nfour half,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"Every penny.\"\n\n\"I have half a sovereign,\" she said. \"Our bill wherever we stop--\" The\nhiatus was more eloquent than many words.\n\n\"I never thought of money coming in to stop us like this,\" said Jessie.\n\n\"It's a juiced nuisance.\"\n\n\"Money,\" said Jessie. \"Is it possible--Surely! Conventionality! May only\npeople of means--Live their own Lives? I never thought ...\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"Here's some more cyclists coming,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\nThe two men were both busy with their bicycle still, but now from among\nthe trees emerged the massive bulk of a 'Marlborough Club' tandem,\nridden by a slender woman in grey and a burly man in a Norfolk jacket.\nFollowing close upon this came lank black figure in a piebald straw hat,\nriding a tricycle of antiquated pattern with two large wheels in front.\nThe man in grey remained bowed over the bicycle, with his stomach\nresting on the saddle, but his companion stood up and addressed some\nremark to the tricycle riders. Then it seemed as if he pointed up hill\nto where Mr. Hoopdriver and his companion stood side by side. A still\nodder thing followed; the lady in grey took out her handkerchief,\nappeared to wave it for a moment, and then at a hasty motion from her\ncompanion the white signal vanished.\n\n\"Surely,\" said Jessie, peering under her hand. \"It's never--\"\n\nThe tandem tricycle began to ascend the hill, quartering elaborately\nfrom side to side to ease the ascent. It was evident, from his heaving\nshoulders and depressed head, that the burly gentleman was exerting\nhimself. The clerical person on the tricycle assumed the shape of a note\nof interrogation. Then on the heels of this procession came a dogcart\ndriven by a man in a billycock hat and containing a lady in dark green.\n\n\"Looks like some sort of excursion,\" said Hoopdriver.\n\nJessie did not answer. She was still peering under her hand. \"Surely,\"\nshe said.\n\nThe clergyman's efforts were becoming convulsive. With a curious jerking\nmotion, the tricycle he rode twisted round upon itself, and he partly\ndismounted and partly fell off. He turned his machine up hill again\nimmediately and began to wheel it. Then the burly gentleman dismounted,\nand with a courtly attentiveness assisted the lady in grey to alight.\nThere was some little difference of opinion as to assistance, she\nso clearly wished to help push. Finally she gave in, and the burly\ngentleman began impelling the machine up hill by his own unaided\nstrength. His face made a dot of brilliant colour among the greys and\ngreens at the foot of the hill. The tandem bicycle was now, it seems,\nrepaired, and this joined the tail of the procession, its riders walking\nbehind the dogcart, from which the lady in green and the driver had now\ndescended.\n\n\"Mr. Hoopdriver,\" said Jessie. \"Those people--I'm almost sure--\"\n\n\"Lord!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, reading the rest in her face, and he turned\nto pick up his machine at once. Then he dropped it and assisted her to\nmount.\n\nAt the sight of Jessie mounting against the sky line the people coming\nup the hill suddenly became excited and ended Jessie's doubts at once.\nTwo handkerchiefs waved, and some one shouted. The riders of the tandem\nbicycle began to run it up hill, past the other vehicles. But our young\npeople did not wait for further developments of the pursuit. In another\nmoment they were out of sight, riding hard down a steady incline towards\nStoney Cross.\n\nBefore they had dropped among the trees out of sight of the hill brow,\nJessie looked back and saw the tandem rising over the crest, with its\nrear rider just tumbling into the saddle. \"They're coming,\" she said,\nand bent her head over her handles in true professional style.\n\nThey whirled down into the valley, over a white bridge, and saw ahead\nof them a number of shaggy little ponies frisking in the roadway.\nInvoluntarily they slackened. \"Shoo!\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, and the\nponies kicked up their heels derisively. At that Mr. Hoopdriver lost his\ntemper and charged at them, narrowly missed one, and sent them jumping\nthe ditch into the bracken under the trees, leaving the way clear for\nJessie.\n\nThen the road rose quietly but persistently; the treadles grew heavy,\nand Mr. Hoopdriver's breath sounded like a saw. The tandem appeared,\nmaking frightful exertions, at the foot, while the chase was still\nclimbing. Then, thank Heaven! a crest and a stretch of up and down road,\nwhose only disadvantage was its pitiless exposure to the afternoon sun.\nThe tandem apparently dismounted at the hill, and did not appear against\nthe hot blue sky until they were already near some trees and a good mile\naway.\n\n\"We're gaining,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, with a little Niagara of\nperspiration dropping from brow to cheek. \"That hill--\"\n\nBut that was their only gleam of success. They were both nearly spent.\nHoopdriver, indeed, was quite spent, and only a feeling of shame\nprolonged the liquidation of his bankrupt physique. From that point the\ntandem grained upon them steadily. At the Rufus Stone, it was scarcely\na hundred yards behind. Then one desperate spurt, and they found\nthemselves upon a steady downhill stretch among thick pine woods.\nDownhill nothing can beat a highly geared tandem bicycle. Automatically\nMr. Hoopdriver put up his feet, and Jessie slackened her pace. In\nanother moment they heard the swish of the fat pneumatics behind them,\nand the tandem passed Hoopdriver and drew alongside Jessie. Hoopdriver\nfelt a mad impulse to collide with this abominable machine as it\npassed him. His only consolation was to notice that its riders, riding\nviolently, were quite as dishevelled as himself and smothered in sandy\nwhite dust.\n\nAbruptly Jessie stopped and dismounted, and the tandem riders shot\npanting past them downhill. \"Brake,\" said Dangle, who was riding behind,\nand stood up on the pedals. For a moment the velocity of the thing\nincreased, and then they saw the dust fly from the brake, as it came\ndown on the front tire. Dangle's right leg floundered in the air as he\ncame off in the road. The tandem wobbled. \"Hold it!\" cried Phipps over\nhis shoulder, going on downhill. \"I can't get off if you don't hold it.\"\nHe put on the brake until the machine stopped almost dead, and then\nfeeling unstable began to pedal again. Dangle shouted after him. \"Put\nout your foot, man,\" said Dangle.\n\nIn this way the tandem riders were carried a good hundred yards or more\nbeyond their quarry. Then Phipps realized his possibilities, slacked up\nwith the brake, and let the thing go over sideways, dropping on to his\nright foot. With his left leg still over the saddle, and still\nholding the handles, he looked over his shoulder and began addressing\nuncomplimentary remarks to Dangle. \"You only think of yourself,\" said\nPhipps, with a florid face.\n\n\"They have forgotten us,\" said Jessie, turning her machine.\n\n\"There was a road at the top of the hill--to Lyndhurst,\" said\nHoopdriver, following her example.\n\n\"It's no good. There's the money. We must give it up. But let us go back\nto that hotel at Rufus Stone. I don't see why we should be led captive.\"\n\nSo to the consternation of the tandem riders, Jessie and her companion\nmounted and rode quietly back up the hill again. As they dismounted at\nthe hotel entrance, the tandem overtook them, and immediately afterwards\nthe dogcart came into view in pursuit. Dangle jumped off.\n\n\"Miss Milton, I believe,\" said Dangle, panting and raising a damp cap\nfrom his wet and matted hair.\n\n\"I SAY,\" said Phipps, receding involuntarily. \"Don't go doing it again,\nDangle. HELP a chap.\"\n\n\"One minute,\" said Dangle, and ran after his colleague.\n\nJessie leant her machine against the wall, and went into the hotel\nentrance. Hoopdriver remained in the hotel entrance, limp but defiant.\n\n\n\n\nXXXVIII. AT THE RUFUS STONE\n\nHe folded his arms as Dangle and Phipps returned towards him. Phipps\nwas abashed by his inability to cope with the tandem, which he was now\nwheeling, but Dangle was inclined to be quarrelsome. \"Miss Milton?\" he\nsaid briefly.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver bowed over his folded arms.\n\n\"Miss Milton within?\" said Dangle.\n\n\"AND not to be disturved,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"You are a scoundrel, sir,\" said Mr. Dangle.\n\n\"Et your service,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver. \"She awaits 'er stepmother,\nsir.\"\n\nMr. Dangle hesitated. \"She will be here immediately,\" he said. \"Here is\nher friend, Miss Mergle.\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver unfolded his arms slowly, and, with an air of immense\ncalm, thrust his hands into his breeches pockets. Then with one of those\nfatal hesitations of his, it occurred to him that this attitude was\nmerely vulgarly defiant he withdrew both, returned one and pulled at\nthe insufficient moustache with the other. Miss Mergle caught him in\nconfusion. \"Is this the man?\" she said to Dangle, and forthwith, \"How\nDARE you, sir? How dare you face me? That poor girl!\"\n\n\n\"You will permit me to observe,\" began Mr. Hoopdriver, with a splendid\ndrawl, seeing himself, for the first time in all this business, as a\nromantic villain.\n\n\"Ugh,\" said Miss Mergle, unexpectedly striking him about the midriff\nwith her extended palms, and sending him staggering backward into the\nhall of the hotel.\n\n\"Let me pass,\" said Miss Mergle, in towering indignation. \"How dare\nyou resist my passage?\" and so swept by him and into the dining-room,\nwherein Jessie had sought refuge.\n\nAs Mr. Hoopdriver struggled for equilibrium with the umbrella-stand,\nDangle and Phipps, roused from their inertia by Miss Mergle's activity,\ncame in upon her heels, Phipps leading. \"How dare you prevent that lady\npassing?\" said Phipps.\n\nMr. Hoopdriver looked obstinate, and, to Dangle's sense, dangerous, but\nhe made no answer. A waiter in full bloom appeared at the end of the\npassage, guardant. \"It is men of your stamp, sir,\" said Phipps, \"who\ndiscredit manhood.\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver thrust his hands into his pockets. \"Who the juice are\nyou?\" shouted Mr. Hoopdriver, fiercely.\n\n\"Who are YOU, sir?\" retorted Phipps. \"Who are you? That's the question.\nWhat are YOU, and what are you doing, wandering at large with a young\nlady under age?\"\n\n\"Don't speak to him,\" said Dangle.\n\n\"I'm not a-going to tell all my secrets to any one who comes at me,\"\nsaid Hoopdriver. \"Not Likely.\" And added fiercely, \"And that I tell you,\nsir.\"\n\nHe and Phipps stood, legs apart and both looking exceedingly fierce at\none another, and Heaven alone knows what might not have happened, if the\nlong clergyman had not appeared in the doorway, heated but deliberate.\n\"Petticoated anachronism,\" said the long clergyman in the doorway,\napparently still suffering from the antiquated prejudice that demanded a\nthird wheel and a black coat from a clerical rider. He looked at Phipps\nand Hoopdriver for a moment, then extending his hand towards the latter,\nhe waved it up and down three times, saying, \"Tchak, tchak, tchak,\" very\ndeliberately as he did so. Then with a concluding \"Ugh!\" and a gesture\nof repugnance he passed on into the dining-room from which the voice\nof Miss Mergle was distinctly audible remarking that the weather was\nextremely hot even for the time of year.\n\nThis expression of extreme disapprobation had a very demoralizing effect\nupon Hoopdriver, a demoralization that was immediately completed by the\nadvent of the massive Widgery.\n\n\"Is this the man?\" said Widgery very grimly, and producing a special\nvoice for the occasion from somewhere deep in his neck.\n\n\"Don't hurt him!\" said Mrs. Milton, with clasped hands. \"However much\nwrong he has done her--No violence!\"\n\n\"'Ow many more of you?\" said Hoopdriver, at bay before the umbrella\nstand. \"Where is she? What has he done with her?\" said Mrs. Milton.\n\n\"I'm not going to stand here and be insulted by a lot of strangers,\"\nsaid Mr. Hoopdriver. \"So you needn't think it.\"\n\n\"Please don't worry, Mr. Hoopdriver,\" said Jessie, suddenly appearing in\nthe door of the dining-room. \"I'm here, mother.\" Her face was white.\n\nMrs. Milton said something about her child, and made an emotional charge\nat Jessie. The embrace vanished into the dining-room. Widgery moved as\nif to follow, and hesitated. \"You'd better make yourself scarce,\" he\nsaid to Mr. Hoopdriver.\n\n\"I shan't do anything of the kind,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, with a catching\nof the breath. \"I'm here defending that young lady.\"\n\n\"You've done her enough mischief, I should think,\" said Widgery,\nsuddenly walking towards the dining-room, and closing the door behind\nhim, leaving Dangle and Phipps with Hoopdriver.\n\n\"Clear!\" said Phipps, threateningly.\n\n\"I shall go and sit out in the garden,\" said Mr. Hoopdriver, with\ndignity. \"There I shall remain.\"\n\n\"Don't make a row with him,\" said Dangle.\n\nAnd Mr. Hoopdriver retired, unassaulted, in almost sobbing dignity.\n\n\n\n\nXXXIX.\n\nSo here is the world with us again, and our sentimental excursion\nis over. In the front of the Rufus Stone Hotel conceive a remarkable\ncollection of wheeled instruments, watched over by Dangle and Phipps in\ngrave and stately attitudes, and by the driver of a stylish dogcart from\nRingwood. In the garden behind, in an attitude of nervous prostration,\nMr. Hoopdriver was seated on a rustic seat. Through the open window of\na private sitting-room came a murmur of voices, as of men and women in\nconference. Occasionally something that might have been a girlish sob.\n\n\"I fail to see what status Widgery has,\" says Dangle, \"thrusting himself\nin there.\"\n\n\"He takes too much upon himself,\" said Phipps.\n\n\"I've been noticing little things, yesterday and to-day,\" said Dangle,\nand stopped.\n\n\"They went to the cathedral together in the afternoon.\"\n\n\"Financially it would be a good thing for her, of course,\" said Dangle,\nwith a gloomy magnanimity.\n\nHe felt drawn to Phipps now by the common trouble, in spite of the man's\nchequered legs. \"Financially it wouldn't be half bad.\"\n\n\"He's so dull and heavy,\" said Phipps.\n\nMeanwhile, within, the clergyman had, by promptitude and dexterity,\ntaken the chair and was opening the case against the unfortunate Jessie.\nI regret to have to say that my heroine had been appalled by the visible\narray of public opinion against her excursion, to the pitch of tears.\nShe was sitting with flushed cheeks and swimming eyes at the end of the\ntable opposite to the clergyman. She held her handkerchief crumpled up\nin her extended hand. Mrs. Milton sat as near to her as possible,\nand occasionally made little dabs with her hand at Jessie's hand,\nto indicate forgiveness. These advances were not reciprocated, which\ntouched Widgery very much. The lady in green, Miss Mergle (B. A.),\nsat on the opposite side near the clergyman. She was the strong-minded\nschoolmistress to whom Jessie had written, and who had immediately\nprecipitated the pursuit upon her. She had picked up the clergyman in\nRingwood, and had told him everything forthwith, having met him once at\na British Association meeting. He had immediately constituted himself\nadministrator of the entire business. Widgery, having been foiled in an\nattempt to conduct the proceedings, stood with his legs wide apart in\nfront of the fireplace ornament, and looked profound and sympathetic.\nJessie's account of her adventures was a chary one and given amidst\nfrequent interruptions. She surprised herself by skilfully omitting any\nallusion to the Bechamel episode. She completely exonerated Hoopdriver\nfrom the charge of being more than an accessory to her escapade.\nBut public feeling was heavy against Hoopdriver. Her narrative was\ninaccurate and sketchy, but happily the others were too anxious to pass\nopinions to pin her down to particulars. At last they had all the facts\nthey would permit.\n\n\"My dear young lady,\" said the clergyman, \"I can only ascribe this\nextravagant and regrettable expedition of yours to the wildest\nmisconceptions of your place in the world and of your duties and\nresponsibilities. Even now, it seems to me, your present emotion is due\nnot so much to a real and sincere penitence for your disobedience and\nfolly as to a positive annoyance at our most fortunate interference--\"\n\n\"Not that,\" said Mrs. Milton, in a low tone. \"Not that.\"\n\n\"But WHY did she go off like this?\" said Widgery. \"That's what _I_ want\nto know.\"\n\nJessie made an attempt to speak, but Mrs. Milton said \"Hush!\" and the\nringing tenor of the clergyman rode triumphantly over the meeting. \"I\ncannot understand this spirit of unrest that has seized upon the more\nintelligent portion of the feminine community. You had a pleasant home,\na most refined and intelligent lady in the position of your mother, to\ncherish and protect you--\"\n\n\"If I HAD a mother,\" gulped Jessie, succumbing to the obvious snare of\nself-pity, and sobbing.\n\n\"To cherish, protect, and advise you. And you must needs go out of it\nall alone into a strange world of unknown dangers-\"\n\n\"I wanted to learn,\" said Jessie.\n\n\"You wanted to learn. May you never have anything to UNlearn.\"\n\n\"AH!\" from Mrs. Milton, very sadly.\n\n\"It isn't fair for all of you to argue at me at once,\" submitted Jessie,\nirrelevantly.\n\n\"A world full of unknown dangers,\" resumed the clergyman. \"Your proper\nplace was surely the natural surroundings that are part of you. You\nhave been unduly influenced, it is only too apparent, by a class of\nliterature which, with all due respect to distinguished authoress\nthat shall be nameless, I must call the New Woman Literature. In that\ndeleterious ingredient of our book boxes--\"\n\n\"I don't altogether agree with you there,\" said Miss Mergle, throwing\nher head back and regarding him firmly through her spectacles, and Mr.\nWidgery coughed.\n\n\"What HAS all this to do with me?\" asked Jessie, availing herself of the\ninterruption.\n\n\"The point is,\" said Mrs. Milton, on her defence, \"that in my books--\"\n\n\"All I want to do,\" said Jessie, \"is to go about freely by myself. Girls\ndo so in America. Why not here?\"\n\n\"Social conditions are entirely different in America,\" said Miss Mergle.\n\"Here we respect Class Distinctions.\"\n\n\"It's very unfortunate. What I want to know is, why I cannot go away for\na holiday if I want to.\"\n\n\"With a strange young man, socially your inferior,\" said Widgery, and\nmade her flush by his tone.\n\n\"Why not?\" she said. \"With anybody.\"\n\n\"They don't do that, even in America,\" said Miss Mergle.\n\n\"My dear young lady,\" said the clergyman, \"the most elementary\nprinciples of decorum--A day will come when you will better understand\nhow entirely subservient your ideas are to the very fundamentals of\nour present civilisation, when you will better understand the harrowing\nanxiety you have given Mrs. Milton by this inexplicable flight of yours.\nWe can only put things down at present, in charity, to your ignorance--\"\n\n\"You have to consider the general body of opinion, too,\" said Widgery.\n\n\"Precisely,\" said Miss Mergle. \"There is no such thing as conduct in the\nabsolute.\" \"If once this most unfortunate business gets about,\" said the\nclergyman, \"it will do you infinite harm.\"\n\n\"But I'VE done nothing wrong. Why should I be responsible for other\npeople's--\"\n\n\"The world has no charity,\" said Mrs. Milton.\n\n\"For a girl,\" said Jessie. \"No.\"\n\n\"Now do let us stop arguing, my dear young lady, and let us listen\nto reason. Never mind how or why, this conduct of yours will do you\ninfinite harm, if once it is generally known. And not only that, it will\ncause infinite pain to those who care for you. But if you will return at\nonce to your home, causing it to be understood that you have been with\nfriends for these last few days--\"\n\n\"Tell lies,\" said Jessie. \"Certainly not. Most certainly not. But I\nunderstand that is how your absence is understood at present, and there\nis no reason--\"\n\nJessie's grip tightened on her handkerchief. \"I won't go back,\" she\nsaid, \"to have it as I did before. I want a room of my own, what books I\nneed to read, to be free to go out by myself alone, Teaching--\"\n\n\"Anything,\" said Mrs. Milton, \"anything in reason.\"\n\n\"But will you keep your promise?\" said Jessie.\n\n\"Surely you won't dictate to your mother!\" said Widgery.\n\n\"My stepmother! I don't want to dictate. I want definite promises now.\"\n\n\"This is most unreasonable,\" said the clergyman. \"Very well,\" said\nJessie, swallowing a sob but with unusual resolution. \"Then I won't go\nback. My life is being frittered away--\"\n\n\"LET her have her way,\" said Widgery.\n\n\"A room then. All your Men. I'm not to come down and talk away half my\ndays--\"\n\n\"My dear child, if only to save you,\" said Mrs. Milton. \"If you don't\nkeep your promise--\"\n\n\"Then I take it the matter is practically concluded,\" said the\nclergyman. \"And that you very properly submit to return to your proper\nhome. And now, if I may offer a suggestion, it is that we take\ntea. Freed of its tannin, nothing, I think, is more refreshing and\nstimulating.\"\n\n\"There's a train from Lyndhurst at thirteen minutes to six,\" said\nWidgery, unfolding a time table. \"That gives us about half an hour or\nthree-quarters here--if a conveyance is obtainable, that is.\"\n\n\"A gelatine lozenge dropped into the tea cup precipitates the tannin in\nthe form of tannate of gelatine,\" said the clergyman to Miss Mergle, in\na confidential bray.\n\nJessie stood up, and saw through the window a depressed head and\nshoulders over the top of the back of a garden seat. She moved towards\nthe door. \"While you have tea, mother,\" she said, \"I must tell Mr.\nHoopdriver of our arrangements.\"\n\n\"Don't you think I--\" began the clergyman.\n\n\"No,\" said Jessie, very rudely; \"I don't.\"\n\n\"But, Jessie, haven't you already--\"\n\n\"You are already breaking the capitulation,\" said Jessie.\n\n\"Will you want the whole half hour?\" said Widgery, at the bell.\n\n\"Every minute,\" said Jessie, in the doorway. \"He's behaved very nobly to\nme.\"\n\n\"There's tea,\" said Widgery.\n\n\"I've had tea.\"\n\n\"He may not have behaved badly,\" said the clergyman. \"But he's certainly\nan astonishingly weak person to let a wrong-headed young girl--\"\n\nJessie closed the door into the garden.\n\n\nMeanwhile Mr. Hoopdriver made a sad figure in the sunlight outside. It\nwas over, this wonderful excursion of his, so far as she was concerned,\nand with the swift blow that separated them, he realised all that those\ndays had done for him. He tried to grasp the bearings of their position.\nOf course, they would take her away to those social altitudes of hers.\nShe would become an inaccessible young lady again. Would they let him\nsay good-bye to her?\n\nHow extraordinary it had all been! He recalled the moment when he had\nfirst seen her riding, with the sunlight behind her, along the riverside\nroad; he recalled that wonderful night at Bognor, remembering it as if\neverything had been done of his own initiative. \"Brave, brave!\" she had\ncalled him. And afterwards, when she came down to him in the morning,\nkindly, quiet. But ought he to have persuaded her then to return to\nher home? He remembered some intention of the sort. Now these people\nsnatched her away from him as though he was scarcely fit to live in the\nsame world with her. No more he was! He felt he had presumed upon her\nworldly ignorance in travelling with her day after day. She was\nso dainty, so delightful, so serene. He began to recapitulate her\nexpressions, the light of her eyes, the turn of her face.. .\n\nHe wasn't good enough to walk in the same road with her. Nobody was.\nSuppose they let him say good-bye to her; what could he say? That? But\nthey were sure not to let her talk to him alone; her mother would be\nthere as--what was it? Chaperone. He'd never once had a chance of saying\nwhat he felt; indeed, it was only now he was beginning to realise what\nhe felt. Love I he wouldn't presume. It was worship. If only he could\nhave one more chance. He must have one more chance, somewhere, somehow.\nThen he would pour out his soul to her eloquently. He felt eloquently,\nand words would come. He was dust under her feet...\n\nHis meditation was interrupted by the click of a door handle, and Jessie\nappeared in the sunlight under the verandah. \"Come away from here,\" she\nsaid to Hoopdriver, as he rose to meet her. \"I'm going home with them.\nWe have to say good-bye.\"\n\nMr. Hoopdriver winced, opened and shut his mouth, and rose without a\nword.\n\n\n\n\nXL.\n\nAt first Jessie Milton and Mr. Hoopdriver walked away from the hotel in\nsilence. He heard a catching in her breath and glanced at her and saw\nher ips pressed tight and a tear on her cheek. Her face was hot and\nbright. She was looking straight before her. He could think of nothing\nto say, and thrust his hands in his pockets and looked away from her\nintentionally. After a while she began to talk. They dealt disjointedly\nwith scenery first, and then with the means of self-education. She took\nhis address at Antrobus's and promised to send him some books. But\neven with that it was spiritless, aching talk, Hoopdriver felt, for\nthe fighting mood was over. She seemed, to him, preoccupied with the\nmemories of her late battle, and that appearance hurt him.\n\n\"It's the end,\" he whispered to himself. \"It's the end.\"\n\nThey went into a hollow and up a gentle wooded slope, and came at last\nto a high and open space overlooking a wide expanse of country. There,\nby a common impulse, they stopped. She looked at her watch--a little\nostentatiously. They stared at the billows of forest rolling away\nbeneath them, crest beyond crest, of leafy trees, fading at last into\nblue.\n\n\"The end\" ran through his mind, to the exclusion of all speakable\nthoughts.\n\n\"And so,\" she said, presently, breaking the silence, \"it comes to\ngood-bye.\"\n\nFor half a minute he did not answer. Then he gathered his resolution.\n\"There is one thing I MUST say.\"\n\n\"Well?\" she said, surprised and abruptly forgetting the recent argument.\n\"I ask no return. But--\"\n\nThen he stopped. \"I won't say it. It's no good. It would be rot from\nme--now. I wasn't going to say anything. Good-bye.\"\n\nShe looked at him with a startled expression in her eyes. \"No,\" she\nsaid. \"But don't forget you are going to work. Remember, brother Chris,\nyou are my friend. You will work. You are not a very strong man, you\nknow, now--you will forgive me--nor do you know all you should. But what\nwill you be in six years' time?\"\n\nHe stared hard in front of him still, and the lines about his weak mouth\nseemed to strengthen. He knew she understood what he could not say.\n\n\"I'll work,\" he said, concisely. They stood side by side for a moment.\nThen he said, with a motion of his head, \"I won't come back to THEM. Do\nyou mind? Going back alone?\"\n\nShe took ten seconds to think. \"No.\" she said, and held out her hand,\nbiting her nether lip. \"GOOD-BYE,\" she whispered.\n\nHe turned, with a white face, looked into her eyes, took her hand\nlimply, and then with a sudden impulse, lifted it to his lips. She would\nhave snatched it away, but his grip tightened to her movement. She felt\nthe touch of his lips, and then he had dropped her fingers and turned\nfrom her and was striding down the slope. A dozen paces away his foot\nturned in the lip of a rabbit hole, and he stumbled forward and almost\nfell. He recovered his balance and went on, not looking back. He never\nonce looked back. She stared at his receding figure until it was small\nand far below her, and then, the tears running over her eyelids now,\nturned slowly, and walked with her hands gripped hard together behind\nher, towards Stoney Cross again.\n\n\"I did not know,\" she whispered to herself. \"I did not understand. Even\nnow--No, I do not understand.\"\n\n\n\n\nXLI. THE ENVOY\n\nSo the story ends, dear Reader. Mr. Hoopdriver, sprawling down there\namong the bracken, must sprawl without our prying, I think, or listening\nto what chances to his breathing. And of what came of it all, of the six\nyears and afterwards, this is no place to tell. In truth, there is no\ntelling it, for the years have still to run. But if you see how a mere\ncounter-jumper, a cad on castors, and a fool to boot, may come to feel\nthe little insufficiencies of life, and if he has to any extent won\nyour sympathies, my end is attained. (If it is not attained, may Heaven\nforgive us both!) Nor will we follow this adventurous young lady of ours\nback to her home at Surbiton, to her new struggle against Widgery and\nMrs. Milton combined. For, as she will presently hear, that devoted man\nhas got his reward. For her, also, your sympathies are invited.\n\nThe rest of this great holiday, too--five days there are left of it--is\nbeyond the limits of our design. You see fitfully a slender figure in\na dusty brown suit and heather mixture stockings, and brown shoes not\nintended to be cycled in, flitting Londonward through Hampshire and\nBerkshire and Surrey, going economically--for excellent reasons. Day by\nday he goes on, riding fitfully and for the most part through bye-roads,\nbut getting a few miles to the north-eastward every day. He is a\nnarrow-chested person, with a nose hot and tanned at the bridge with\nunwonted exposure, and brown, red-knuckled fists. A musing expression\nsits upon the face of this rider, you observe. Sometimes he whistles\nnoiselessly to himself, sometimes he speaks aloud, \"a juiced good try,\nanyhow!\" you hear; and sometimes, and that too often for my liking, he\nlooks irritable and hopeless. \"I know,\" he says, \"I know. It's over\nand done. It isn't IN me. You ain't man enough, Hoopdriver. Look at yer\nsilly hands!... Oh, my God!\" and a gust of passion comes upon him and he\nrides furiously for a space.\n\nSometimes again his face softens. \"Anyhow, if I'm not to see her--she's\ngoing to lend me books,\" he thinks, and gets such comfort as he can.\nThen again; \"Books! What's books?\" Once or twice triumphant memories of\nthe earlier incidents nerve his face for a while. \"I put the ky-bosh on\nHIS little game,\" he remarks. \"I DID that,\" and one might even call him\nhappy in these phases. And, by-the-bye, the machine, you notice, has\nbeen enamel-painted grey and carries a sonorous gong.\n\nThis figure passes through Basingstoke and Bagshot, Staines, Hampton,\nand Richmond. At last, in Putney High Street, glowing with the warmth of\nan August sunset and with all the 'prentice boys busy shutting up shop,\nand the work girls going home, and the shop folks peeping abroad, and\nthe white 'buses full of late clerks and city folk rumbling home to\ntheir dinners, we part from him. He is back. To-morrow, the early\nrising, the dusting, and drudgery, begin again--but with a difference,\nwith wonderful memories and still more wonderful desires and ambitions\nreplacing those discrepant dreams.\n\nHe turns out of the High Street at the corner, dismounts with a sigh,\nand pushes his machine through the gates of the Antrobus stable yard, as\nthe apprentice with the high collar holds them open. There are words of\ngreeting. \"South Coast,\" you hear; and \"splendid weather--splendid.\" He\nsighs. \"Yes--swapped him off for a couple of sovs. It's a juiced good\nmachine.\"\n\nThe gate closes upon him with a slam, and he vanishes from our ken."