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.