“That is so like you, Pauline,” exclaimed Mary Leighton, in a voice that stung me like nettles.

“It is very like common-sense,” I said, “if that’s like me.”

“Well, it isn’t particularly.”

“Let dogs delight,” said Kilian, “I have a compromise to offer.  If we go home by the bridge we pass the little Brink hotel, where they give capital teas.  We can stop there, rest, get tea, have a dance in the ‘ball-room,’ sixteen by twenty, and go home by moonlight, filling the souls of Miss Leighton and Henrietta with bliss.”

A chorus of ecstasy followed this; Sophie herself was satisfied with the plan, and exulted in the prospect of washing her face, and lying down on a bed for half an hour, though only at a little country inn.  Even this low form of civilized life was tempting, after seven hours spent in communion with nature on hard rocks.

Great alacrity was shown in getting ready and in getting off.  I could not speak to any one, not even the dissatisfied man, but walked away by myself and tried to let no one see what I was feeling.  After all was ready, I got into the carriage beside one of the Miss Lowders, and the dissatisfied man sat opposite.  He wore canvas shoes and a corduroy suit, and sleeve-buttons and studs that were all bugs and bees.  I think I could make a drawing of the sleeve-button on the arm with which he held the umbrella over us; there were five different forms of insect-life represented on it, but I remember them all.

“I’m afraid you haven’t enjoyed yourself very much,” said Miss Lowder, looking at me rather critically.

“I? why—­no, perhaps not; I don’t generally enjoy myself very much.”

Somebody out on the front seat laughed very shrilly at this:  of course it was Mary Leighton, who was sitting beside Kilian, who drove.  I felt I would have liked to push her over among the horses, and drive on.

“Isn’t her voice like a steel file?” I said with great simplicity to my companions.  The dissatisfied man, writhing uncomfortably on his seat, four inches too narrow for any one but a child of six, assented gloomily.  Miss Lowder, who was twenty-eight years old and very well bred, looked disapproving, and changed the subject.  Not much more was said after this.  Miss Lowder had a neuralgic headache, developed by the cold wind and an undigested dinner eaten irregularly.  She was too polite to mention her sufferings, but leaned back in the carriage and was silent.

My vis-a-vis was at last relieved by the declining sun from his task, and so the umbrella-arm and its sleeve-button were removed from my range of vision.

We counted the mile-posts, and we looked sometimes at our watches, and so the time wore away.

Kilian and Mary Leighton were chattering incessantly, and did not pay much attention to us.  Kilian drove pretty fast almost all the way, but sometimes forgot himself when Mary was too seductive, and let the horses creep along like snails.