“And I went out this afternoon for no other reason than to give them a chance to make it up between them.  I thought perhaps they would do it better if they were alone with each other.  But of course I do not know what has happened, and things may be worse than they were.  I could not take a stranger into the house at such a time—­they would not like to be found not speaking to each other—­and, besides, I do not know—­”

Here I interrupted her, and begged her not to give another thought to the subject.  I wanted very much to go on, and in every way it was the best thing I could do.

As I finished speaking she pointed out a pretty house standing back from the road, and told me that was where she lived.  In a very few minutes after that I had run her up to the steps of her piazza and was assisting her to dismount from her wheel.

“It is awful!” she said.  “This rain is coming down like a cataract!”

“You must hurry in-doors,” I answered.  “Let me help you up the steps.”  And with this I took hold of her under the arms, and in a second I had set her down in front of the closed front door.  I then ran down and brought up her wheel.  “Do you think you can manage to walk in?” said I.

“Oh yes!” she said.  “If I can’t do anything else, I can hop.  My mother will soon have me all right.  She knows all about such things.”

She looked at me with an anxious expression, and then said, “How do you think it would do for you to wait on the piazza until the rain is over?”

“Good-bye,” I said, with a laugh, and bounding down to the front gate, where I had left my bicycle, I mounted and rode away.

The rain came down harder and harder.  The road was full of little running streams, and liquid mud flew from under my whirling wheels.  It was not late in the afternoon, but it was actually getting dark, and I seemed to be the only living creature out in this tremendous storm.  I looked from side to side for some place into which I could run for shelter, but here the road ran between broad open fields.  My coat had ceased to protect me, and I could feel the water upon my skin.

But in spite of my discomforts and violent exertions I found myself under the influence of some very pleasurable emotions, occasioned by the incident of the slender girl.  Her childlike frankness was charming to me.  There was not another girl in a thousand who would have told me that story of the peas.  I felt glad that she had known who I was when she was talking to me, and that her simple confidences had been given to me personally, and not to an entire stranger who had happened along.  I wondered if she resembled her father or her mother, and I had no doubt that to possess such a daughter they must both be excellent people.

CHAPTER III

THE DUKE’S DRESSING-GOWN