Capricious Caroline

BY THE SAME AUTHOR Susannah and One Other Love and Louisa Peter a Parasite The Blunder of an Innocent
GOD HAS A FEW OF US WHOM HE WHISPERS IN THE EAR BROWNING
First Published . . . September, 1904 Second Edition . . . May, 1905
This story originally appeared in the Weekly Edition of The Times , and is now issued in book form by arrangement with the proprietors of that journal.

As the large motor swung along with the easy velocity and assurance of some enormous bird, Camilla Lancing nestled more cosily into the warmth of her fur wraps.
Rupert Haverford was driving, and he looked back every now and then to see if his guest was comfortable.
Is this too quick for you? he asked once; and Mrs. Lancing only shook her head with a smile.
It is too delightful, she answered.
The little town where they had been lunching lay far, far away in the distance now, its ugliness softened by the mingling of sun and haze, and the country through which they were passing was very open; in a degree bleak. On one hand marshland and rough common ground, and on the other the beach inland, then stretches of wet sand, and then the restless, murmuring sea, bearing on its shimmering surface the cold embrace of the setting November sun.
Mrs. Lancing sighed involuntarily as she looked dreamily away to where the sky and sea seemed to meet, but her sigh was an unconscious tribute to the graciousness of the circumstances in which she found herself.
The smooth swinging movement of the car fascinated her. As she now and then closed her eyes, she felt as if she were being carried away from all that constituted life to her at other times; from excitement and pleasure and anxiety, from sordid and obtrusive care; even from the fever of hope and the illusive charm of chance. It was a delightful sensation.