A Prelude.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 20, 14 May 1913, Page 58

A Prelude.

By

Adam Stern,

in “London Opinion-”

THE sunburnt young man, standing by the touring ear drawn up by the side of the road, turned, his head at the sound of whirring wheels. A girl on a bicycle Hashed past him down the hill, her hand to her hat, ■her skirt rumpled impudently by the breeze. She was a neat little rounded figure, in a blue linen frock, and with brown arms bare to the elbow. “Gee!” thought he, “that’s a ripping little flapper!” He glimpsed her profile as she swept round a bend of the hill, and to his impressionable fancy it was as though she sailed on. the erest of the wind. “Now, a girl like that ...” he mused imaginatively then thought stopped, startled at the sight of a sudden accident. The bicycle iiad become unruly. The "wheels shook, staggered, appeared to desire opposite directions. With an abrupt and startling disintegration rider and steed parted company. “Gee-whizz!” stared the young man. Tile girl rolled over and over, the bicycle met the road with a hard jingling •bang. He covered the intervening distance in the space of about seven seconds. She was lying face downwards in a heap, on the strip of sward running by the roadside. her hair dishevelled, an arm pressed over her eyes. He raised her up gently, supporting her against hie knee. She mechanically tidied her skirt. “Ooh — dear!" she suddenly sobbed, and hid her face against his coat and shed unwilling ’He felt ridiculously childish and magnificently manly all in the same moment. “Beastly thing!” he said incoherently. "Has it hurt you very much?” “Bas it hurt me!” She pushed herself away from him, roused by the question’s inanity. “Oh, no.” she said elaborately, "I do this every Wednesday for amusement.'’ “Sorry,” lie murmured. "Oh, you idiot!” she said bitterly. "You perfectly unspeakable idiot!” “Me?” he said blankly. ♦ No, me! You may as well know the truth. I was showing off. I came down one-handed, thinking—oh, thinking you would think how Diana-like and daring I looked. Such idiots girls are!” “You certainly looked absolutely stunning,” he assured her. “Did 1?” she returned disagreeably. "Well, I don’t want to hear it. Look there!” she added, with a "change of voice to pleading, and she held up a wounded palm whereon blood made a smudge of the dust. .She prodded round the hurt place morbidly. . “Poor gill,” he said. “Here! let me tie it up for you? I’ve a clean handkerchief somewhere.” I don t want it. Leave me alone,” she said miserably. “But—be a sensible girl now. It must fie excrutiating.” Its perfectly’ adorable. Shut up! Oh, my aunt! Don’t, my leg hurts-” She caught at her underlip and winced as she experimented. “Here! help me get up, ’ she said, “there’s something gone wrong here.” She clutched at his head, and gingerly stood erect. She sat down again. “That woi?t do,” she said. "You’ll have to turn your head away while 1 see what's destroyed my agility.” He obediently did so, turning his back to her and gazing up the hill. “1 shall want that handkerchief after nil,” she said in a preoccupied tone. "Aline isn’t long enough.” He passed it behind him and hoped it was nothing serious. “Oh, it's nothing to go into hysterics about, but it jolly well hurts. It's my kne.o, if you want to know. Now, go and fetch my bike, and see what's happened to that.” “Masterful little devil.” he thought, but felt rather pleased than otherwise. He returned after a minute and found . her on her feet, knocking the dust from her skirt. She looked at him from under her brows- calculating brown eyes, with eyebrows like delicate feathers. She could b;w»’* w have been iiieie than seventeen.

He showed her with disgust a piece of rusty wire. “ That's what did the mischief,” he said, “ The confounded thing!” and he cast it away from him. “What about the bike?” “ Oh, that’s knocked up, too. Crank’s broken. It’s impossible for you to ride it.” He surveyed her resentfully. He was the sort of young num who looks angry when intending to be kind. “Nor are you fit to ride,” lie went on, dietatorieally. “That’s my ear up there. I’ll run you along, if you’ll kindly tell me where you’re going.” “ It's awfully good' of you,” she said, “ but I couldn’t take you out of your way?’ “They’ appear to be the same ways—if you’re making for Shepton Dane.” “ That’s where I live,” she said, and indicated over the valley the beginnings of the country town. “ I’d just been out for a spin—l was on my way home to tea.” , “ And I live at Merton Towers,” he said, “ three miles beyond. I expect you know’ it.” “ Why . . .” she said, and stared at him with widening wander. “ That’s where Lord Weystrell has just come to live, isn't it ? ” “ That’s so,” he agreed, modestly. “ Oh!” she said, in a perfect consternaation. And then, “ I’d heard he’d bought it,” with a ravishing blush. She suddenly’ spluttered, and put her hand Io her mouth. “I say!” she burst out, “and I’ve been cheeking you fearfully!” “ Never mind about that,” he laughed. “ T don't object to it. Why should I ? ” And he offered her his arm, and together, with the recalcitrant machine on one side, and the girl’ slightly limping on the other, they ascended the hill, conscious of palpitations. “ Where will you ride ? ” he asked her. “Tn state in the car, or by me on the front ? ” “Oh, by you!” she said, with an impulsive glance sideways. He assisted her in, and then, stowing the bicycle inside, took his seat beside her. They sped off smoothly, with the sound of a bee. “Lovely!” she murmured, with eyes like stars. “ My only wish is that we were a hundred miles from anywhere. I hope you're feeling better.” “Pain has almost gone, thank you.” “I’d have given anything to have had the spill for you. It’s rotten to see a girl come a purler. If you’d felt what I felt when I saw you turn head over heels —What a lucky chanee, meeting you like this ? ” “ Isn’t it ? ” she murmured. “ I never dreamt . . .” “ Dreamt what ? ” he. asked. "Oh, an adventure!” she said, and relapsed into silent ecstasy. “Worst of it is,” he regretted, “it will be over - in about five minutes. I'd take you a run round, only the people are expecting me back. Regular mob staying with us—they don’t give a fellow a chanee. To be quite candid, I’m not over keen on this social business. The wilds and open spaces for me! Why, would you believe it,” he went on. patting the thing which carried them, “ only six weeks ago this and me pvere amUling through Tibet.” She had heard of the Weystrell wanderlust. “ You've travelled almost everywhere,” 'she said, enviously.' “ I expect you’ve had lots of adventures.” “ Loads,” he assented. “ I’ll tell you all about them one day —when we get to know each other better.” "But perhaps we shan’t, though,” she replied with nevertheless a bright-hued hope that perhaps the age of fairy tales was not dead. "That depends on you,” he said promptly, and looked at her ardently with his'sky blue eyes. He was certainly not tardy in his advances; she felt herself grow radiantly confused. “I'm such a nobody,” she confessed. “T don’t even know how I should address you.” “Well, call me Jack then. It's as good a name as any other. Say Jack.” "Jack,” she said. “Like it?” he asked her. “It's not so bad,” she admitted, and then flashed him a roguish glance, “I

say!” she exclaimed, “You are a bit rapid, you know!” “It’s my nature,” he replied; “I’m glad to see that you can keep up with it.” “I’m not quite sure that I can,” she said. “I’m not quite sure that I ought to,” she added demurely. It was a point where conversation became unnecessary. He had one of htyr hands clasped lightly in his —held there as it were parenthetically—as they drove into the precincts of the town. They climbed a narrow street and turned a corner, coming into sight of an old-fashioned looking hostelry, where a little group of men stood talking on the steps. One of the men, a brickish-skin-ned and sandy-haired individual in tweeds and a eap, suddenly lifted up his head and appeared to become amazingly irate. "Hey! Baldwin!” he shouted to the man in the motor, “Baldwin, I’ve got a message from his lordship for you! Dash that man! who’s he got with him in that ear? Baldwin, I say! Don’t you hear me?” But Baldwin, if he heard, like the small boy, “took no notice.” He drove on steadily, his jawbone set, eyebrows drawn to a scow). The girl only peeped at him. She gazed straight ahead of her, expression very solemn. He rounded a corner and they ran along in silence, till he drew up outside a bicycle shop. There he alighted and, still in silence, lifted out the bicycle and carried it into the shop. When he came out again she was standing on the pavement. He avoided her eyes. “They’re putting it to rights for you,” he muttered. “It will be ready in an hour or so.” “Thank you," she answered meekly. He turned away from her and examined with some morosene.se a blemish on the bonnet of the car. All at once he wheeled round, as crimson with violent temper as ever she had seen a man! “I never told you I was his lordship! You imagined it yourself.” “Yes,”" she said, in a subdued little voice. “And what’s more, I’m satisfied to be what I am. Quite satisfied!” “Of course,” she agreed, as though to doubt it were out of the question. "Let me tell you this,” he went on stormily; “there are plenty of decent fellows who go in for driving cars—plenty of them. Not because they have to, but because they like it. There’s nothing disgraceful in being a chauffeur!” “No,” she said meekly. Two little lamps of glee burned in her eyes. “And if you want to know,” he went on, developing eantankerousness, “we’re Jack and Bill to each other, Weystrell and I, when we’re out of this conventioncursed country. See?” he challenged. She minutely nodded. “That’s all,” he said sourly, and turned away abruptly. Her clear voice filled the silence. “If I only knew you a bit better I should call you an old sillv.”

He turned at that, uncomfortable, but with a light showing through the gloom. “I don’t know what you’re making bo much fuss about,” she said, matter-of-factly. “We only keep a small shop.” They looked kt each other. Their glances fused. She still had something to say, it seemed. “I suppose, now that you’re living so close, you’ll often be coming into town! I mean ” she added, hesitating. . . •