“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I knew I should fall off the moment I saw you.”
It was impossible under the circumstances to preserve my appearance of abstraction and, blushing furiously, I said that it didn’t matter at all.
The man had got off as she fell.
“You haven’t hurt yourself?” he asked.
“Oh, no.”
I recognized him then as Edward Driffield, the author I had seen walking with the curate a few days before.
“I’m just learning to ride,” said his companion. “And I fall off whenever I see anything in the road.”
“Aren’t you the vicar’s nephew?” said Driffield. “I saw you the other day. Galloway told me who you were. This is my wife.”
She held out her hand with an oddly frank gesture and when I took it gave mine a warm and hearty pressure. She smiled with her lips and with her eyes and there was in her smile something that even then I recognized as singularly pleasant. I was confused. People I did not know made me dreadfully self-conscious, and I could not take in any of the details of her appearance. I just had an impression of a rather large blond woman. I do not know if I noticed then or only remembered afterward that she wore a full skirt of blue serge, a pink shirt with a starched front and a starched collar, and a straw hat, called in those days, I think, a boater, perched on the top of a lot of golden hair.
“I think bicycling’s lovely, don’t you?” she said, looking at my beautiful new machine which leaned against the stile. “It must be wonderful to be able to ride well.”
I felt that this inferred an admiration for my proficiency.
“It’s only a matter of practice,” I said.
“This is only my third lesson. Mr. Driffield says I’m coming on wonderful, but I feel so stupid I could kick myself. How long did it take you before you could ride?”
I blushed to the roots of my hair. I could hardly utter the shameful words.
“I can’t ride,” I said. “I’ve only just got this bike and this is the first time I’ve tried.”
I equivocated a trifle there, but I made it all right with my conscience by adding the mental reservation: except yesterday at home in the garden.
“I’ll give you a lesson if you like,” said Driffield in his good-humoured way. “Come on.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Why not?” asked his wife, her blue eyes still pleasantly smiling. “Mr. Driffield would like to and it’ll give me a chance to rest.”
Driffield took my bicycle, and I, reluctant but unable to withstand his friendly violence, clumsily mounted. I swayed from side to side, but he held me with a firm hand.
“Faster,” he said.
I pedalled and he ran by me as I wobbled from side to side. We were both very hot when, notwithstanding his struggles, I at last fell off. It was very hard under such circumstances to preserve the standoffishness befitting the vicar’s nephew with the son of Miss Wolfe’s bailiff, and when I started back again and for thirty or forty thrilling yards actually rode by myself and Mrs. Driffield ran into the middle of the road with her arms akimbo shouting, “Go it, go it, two to one on the favourite,” I was laughing so much that I positively forgot all about my social status. I got off of my own accord, my face no doubt wearing an air of immodest triumph, and received without embarrassment the Driffields’ congratulation on my cleverness in riding a bicycle the very first day I tried.
“I want to see if I can get on by myself,” said Mrs. Driffield, and I sat down again on the stile while her husband and I watched her unavailing struggles.
Then, wanting to rest again, disappointed but cheerful, she sat down beside me. Driffield lit his pipe. We chatted. I did not of course realize it then, but I know now that there was a disarming frankness in her manner that put one at one’s ease. She talked with a kind of eagerness, like a child bubbling over with the zest of life, and her eyes were lit all the time by her engaging smile. I did not know why I liked it. I should say it was a little sly, if slyness were not a displeasing quality; it was too innocent to be sly. It was mischievous rather, like that of a child who has done something that he thinks funny, but is quite well aware that you will think rather naughty; he knows all the same that you won’t be really cross and if you don’t find out about it quickly he’ll come and tell you himself. But of course then I only knew that her smile made me feel at home.
Presently Driffield, looking at his watch, said that they must be going and suggested that we should all ride back together in style. It was just the time that my aunt and uncle
