The Cycle Ride
ON the way home Doris's barometrical conditions underwent a change.
Excitement had vanished; chatter ceased.
The talkative mood over, she became conscious of having given vent
to a good deal of nonsense. And people seldom talked nonsense at
Lynnthorpe. The atmosphere was uncongenial; in fact, Lynnthorpe was
the wrong place for nonsense of any sort, good, bad, or indifferent.
From earliest childhood the doctrine had been impressed upon Doris
that, when with any of the Stirling family, she must be on her best
behaviour, must speak in her gentlest tones, must use her mildest
adjectives. Perhaps she had never before so flagrantly run in the
teeth of these rules.
So far as regarded Hamilton she did not mind. She had meant to shock
him—a little—and if she had succeeded, so much the better. But to
shock Mr. Stirling and Katherine was like shocking Royalty; a thing
not to be got over. She determined that, next time she went to
Lynnthorpe, she would carefully wipe out to-day's impressions by an
elderly decorum, better suited to the dignified surroundings. She
loved Katherine with a mild and flameless affection; and she looked
upon the Squire as the ne plus ultra—the ultima thule—of all that
a man should be. He was in her girlish eyes the embodiment of
masculine perfection; and from judgment in that direction existed
no appeal.
Besides these uneasy recollections, she was annoyed with Hamilton for
his insistence in seeing her home. It was an annoyance entirely due
to her mother's action. Possibly she might have been disappointed
had he not insisted.
He rode his bicycle as he did most things, too rigidly; while her
lissom figure swayed with easy grace to each curve in the road; and
she flew along at a speed which he tried to check by holding back.
In vain; for she shot ahead, glanced back, and gave him a wicked
little farewell nod. He had to put on speed to overtake her.
She was thinking hard. She knew that he objected to rapid bicycling
for women; and she was bent still on crossing him. Mrs. Winton had
seemed to take it for granted—or so Doris imagined—that he only had
to speak to be accepted. Her pride was up in arms. Nobody should
suppose that she sat meekly, with folded hands, awaiting permission
to be his.
She might marry some day. She might even marry Hamilton Stirling.
It was not an impossibility. All things considered, she rather
favoured the notion, as a dim and distant prospect. She enjoyed
feeling herself the object of somebody's attentions. It gave her
a touch of prestige. Moreover, she had a supreme admiration for
intellect in every form; and thus far Hamilton was about the best
embodiment of intellect that she had come across.
Or if not, he appeared so to her; and at least he thoroughly believed
in himself. Doris was not unwilling to accept him at his own
valuation. He had graduated with moderate honours, and had elected
to enter no profession, but to devote his life to the pursuit of
science. Since he had enough to live on, he could do as he chose.
His mother objected, but not strenuously, being glad to keep him
at home. Friends opposed the decision; but Hamilton, with calm
indifference, pursued the even tenor of his way.
He was not an energetic man, yet none could call him idle. He read
a great deal, belonged to divers learned societies, and wrote much,
with the avowed intention of becoming, one day, a scientific luminary.
Doris decided that, if ever she did marry him, he should write
something that would stir the world. She would be his helper, his
inspirer. The idea was fascinating; and she failed to remember
the disappointed ambitions of a certain "Dorothea," great in fiction,—
aspirations like in kind.
While so cogitating she abstained from remark, waiting for him to
begin. But he too was silent. He could not get over her conduct that
afternoon, or the coldness with which she had so far received his
confidential letter.
It dawned upon her that, if he had made up his mind not to take the
initiative, no power on earth would make him. There was a spice
of obstinacy in his composition.
"How nice it was of you to write and tell me about that article
of yours being accepted!" she said approvingly.
He spoke in chilling accents. "I supposed that you felt no interest."
"But I do. Why, of course I do. I think it's most frightfully jolly
that you are really going to get into print at last. Quite too
delicious, I mean,"—as she recalled his dislike to girlish slang.
Perhaps she had shocked him enough for one day. "And now they've taken
one paper, they'll take lots more, of course. How soon is it coming
out?"
"Probably in a month or two." Curt still.
"Odd—isn't it?— that when a heap of old bones are found in a cave,
people can put them together—like a jig-saw puzzle—and settle all
about the sort of creatures that used to live there?"
Hamilton smiled a superior smile; and Doris's long lashes twinkled
an acknowledgment.
"But sometimes the very cleverest men do make mistakes—and call the
old bones by wrong names."
This "drew" Hamilton, as she intended; and he launched into an
elaborate defence of scientists in general. Very much to his surprise,
he found her remark to be no random shaft. He had discovered before
now a cheerful uncertainty about Doris's mental attributes, which kept
him continually on the stretch. You never could foretell what she
would produce next from her hidden laboratory. Any amount of feminine
inconsequence might come to the fore; but, when least expected,
she would send an arrow straight to the mark.
"Oh, yes, of course. Nobody makes mistakes on purpose. But there was
a bone somewhere, which all the savants declared was a human bone.
And they proved a heap of things from it, about how long man had been
living on earth. And in the end it turned out to be only a bear's
bone; so all the wonderful arguments went to smash. Father told me;
and I think he was rather pleased. Only, he was afraid a great many
people who heard of its being a man's bone, never were told that it
was all a mistake. And he said we should never be in a hurry to draw
conclusions of that sort, because Science is a structure built upon
discarded blunders." She quoted the words with empressement.
Hamilton had intended to give, not to receive, information. He would
not for the world confess that he had forgotten the incident
in question; for a man whose cue it is to know everything naturally
does not like to be caught napping. He was conscious of relief
when she went back to his article.
"Would you care to read it in proof?" he asked.
"May I, really?" Her face flashed into brilliant interest. "I've never
read proof-sheets. May I help you to correct the mistakes?"
His smile showed doubt of her powers. "I have it here," he remarked,
and she was on the ground with a spring. Impetus carried him ahead;
but he wheeled, came back, and dismounted.
"You should not jump off in that wild way. It is unsafe."
"Oh, I often do, going full speed. I always come down right way up.
Do show me the proof. It's light enough."
Her eagerness gratified him. They stood at one side of the road,
and red sunset gleams, shining through a thin veil of trees, found a
reflection in her sunny face. He fished a small packet out of its
retreat, and she scanned the long slip with delight, spotting
instantly two slight printer's errors which had escaped his notice.
He pencilled both; and then she pitched on another mistake, this time
grammatical, not the printer's but Hamilton's own. He was chagrined,
finding it impossible to deny the force of her contention; and—"I will
consider it"—was all he could bring himself to say. He had expected
praise, not criticism.
A motor car rushed by, covering them both with dust. Doris was too
much absorbed to notice it.
"You couldn't let that stay. Think—how it would sound!" She read the
sentence aloud with exaggerated emphasis. But the next instant she was
soothing his ruffled sensibilities. "How you must love to see yourself
in print! I should like it of all things. To feel that one has power
over other people's minds—to feel that one may help them, and make
them better! Don't you see?"
She met a non-comprehending glance. What Hamilton did see at that
moment was Doris herself. He wondered that he had been so slow
to realise her charm. Yes—she was the woman for him—with just a little
shaping and manipulation. He was glad that he had spoken to Katherine.
"Don't you see?" she repeated, her hazel eyes deepening. "I think—I do
really think—I would rather have that power than any other. Only,
of course, one would have first to understand more of life."
But life in Hamilton's eyes wore a simple aspect, not in the least
perplexing. He was always sure of his own standing, and he could look
upon no landscape from his neighbour's position.
"People seem so oddly arranged for—so queerly placed!" She forgot the
printed slip in her hand, as she gazed dreamily away from him and
toward the reddening west. "Born artists set to darn socks; and born
musicians set to sweep crossings; and born idiots set to govern
nations. People having to live with just those others who go most
frightfully against the grain,—and having to do just exactly the work
that they most detest and can't—really can't—ever do well. Why mayn't
people always be with those that suit them—and do the things they like
doing?"
His slower mind followed her gyrations with difficulty. There was
in him no gift of instant grip and swift response, that most valuable
of assets in dealing with other minds. He could talk for an hour at a
time, but always in certain grooves. He could not catch up another's
line of thought, and make it for the time his own. Before he could
decide what to say, she was off on a fresh tack.
"I'm so glad you're going to get this paper out. It's a beginning.
But you won't stop there, will you? You won't only write articles
on geology and that sort of thing—will you? Not only about the bones
of poor old dead people, who lived such ages and ages ago. Can't you
sometimes write what would help the people who are alive now—something
that will tell them how to make the best of their lives? Do you see
what I mean? You don't mind my saying it? So many people seem to be
all wrong—put in the wrong place, and having the wrong sort of work
to do. And if you can write, couldn't you help them—say something
to show them how to get right?"
Her shining eyes were full upon him; and he had an uneasy
consciousness that she was asking of him that which he was powerless
to give. The feeling of incapacity was unwelcome; and he took refuge
from it by beginning to quote in his measured tones—
"'The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all—'"
"But that has been said before," she interrupted hastily. "Everybody
knows it; and I think now we want something new. Couldn't you give us
something fresh? Couldn't you think it all out, and give it us
in words that haven't been said before?"
She read displeasure in his look.
"Besides—the trivial round never does furnish me with all I want.
I detest common everyday tasks. They are so stupendously dull. Well—
it can't be helped. We had better go on."
She in her turn was vexed with his lack of sympathy. She had opened
out a corner of her real self, and had met with a rebuff. She gave him
back his proof, and was off like an arrow, sweeping down the long
gentle incline. Hamilton kept pace with her, but he counted the speed
unsafe for a woman; and at the bottom of the hill he told her so.
She glowered all the rest of the way. But her anger was not
unbecoming. Most people, out of temper, look their worst. Hamilton was
fain to admit to himself that she looked her best—reticent, dignified,
with a geranium-tint in her cheeks, and a smouldering glow in the
deep-set eyes which turned them nearly black.
More and more he was conscious of a growing thraldom. At some future
day he would certainly make this girl his wife. It did not occur
to him to say "If!" But some training first was desirable; and he
hoped great things from Katherine's gentle influence. He had never
so distinctly disapproved of Doris as to-day; and he had never before
found himself so definitely in love with her. The combination was a
trial to his well-balanced mind.