perhaps, but still more slowly. But he was too vexed to care if their progress were slow or quick. He loathed the pert, confident creature at his side from the bottom of his heart. Viewed in the sudden sultry heat of his feelings, what was her self-possession but brazen effrontery? Was such diabolic quickness of riposte even 64 creditable to her years and sex? He considered the situation briefly: why were they in their present plight? Because, to put the matter baldly, he had been misled by the statements of a young woman who had openly admitted herself in no condition to be held responsible for her words--a pretty state of things! Really, it was hardly . . . hardly . . . but she was speaking again. 64 "Mr. Tony," she said softly (she had the knack of making a soft murmur rise above the clamour of the machinery), "please do not think, Mr. Tony, that I do not appreciate your courage, and--and sensibleness after it all happened! And I fully realise that it was partly my--that I--that if I had not----" "Not at all," he answered stiffly, taking pity in spite of himself at her evident embarrassment. "As you implied, the initial responsibility was all mine." But though his words were stiff, his heart had grown insensibly supple under the pressure of her voice. After all, what did her condition prove--that condition that had prompted their mad flight-- but her very innocence and ignorance of alcoholic stimulant? A 65 very good showing, in these relaxed and indecorous days. We should always try to be just. 65 Drifting on these conflicting tides of feeling, Antony ceased to study the winding road with the severe scrutiny he had hitherto applied to it, and as the way was now very rough, he failed utterly to observe for what it was, a certain grassy cart track curving into their path, and took it with a twist of the wheel, even as his companion cried out in alarm. "What are you doing? This cannot be right!" she warned, but it was too late, and Antony realized that on the very verge of the 66 wood road, just as he should have looked for a space to turn in and retrace their safe course, he had left that course entirely and was steering along a now barely perceptible wheelway through a rough and rolling pasture lot. 66 He shut his lips tightly and affected not to have heard her, and for a few seconds they rode, in silence, through the
Prev.
Back
Top