“You set the pace,” said Margaret. “I think I can keep up.”
He took her at her word, and the amazing briskness of their start seemed a little sinister to Penrod, though he was convinced that he could do anything that Margaret could do, and also that neither she nor her comely friend could sustain such a speed for long. On the contrary, they actually increased it with each fleeting block they covered.
“Here!” he panted, when they had thus put something more than a half-mile behind them. “There isn't anybody has to have a doctor, I guess! What's the use our walkin' so fast?”
In truth, Penrod was not walking, for his shorter legs permitted no actual walking at such a speed; his gait was a half-trot.
“Oh, WE'RE out for a WALK!” Mr. Blakely returned, a note of gayety beginning to sound in his voice. “Marg—ah—Miss Schofield, keep your head up and breathe through your nose. That's it! You'll find I was right in suggesting this. It's going to turn out gloriously! Now, let's make it a little faster.”
Margaret murmured inarticulately, for she would not waste her breath in a more coherent reply. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were brimming with the wind, but when she looked at Penrod, they were brimming with something more. Gurgling sounds came from her.
Penrod's expression had become grim. He offered no second protest, mainly because he, likewise, would not waste his breath, and if he would, he could not. Of breath in the ordinary sense breath, breathed automatically—he had none. He had only gasps to feed his straining lungs, and his half-trot, which had long since become a trot, was changed for a lope when Mr. Blakely reached his own best burst of speed.
And now people stared at the flying three. The gait of Margaret and Mr. Blakely could be called a walk only by courtesy, while Penrod's was becoming a kind of blind scamper. At times he zigzagged; other times, he fell behind, wabbling. Anon, with elbows flopping and his face sculptured like an antique mask, he would actually forge ahead, and then carom from one to the other of his companions as he fell back again.
Thus the trio sped through the coming of autumn dusk, outflying the fallen leaves that tumbled upon the wind. And still Penrod held to the task that he had set himself. The street lamps flickered into life, but on and on Claude Blakely led the lady, and on and on reeled the grim Penrod. Never once was he so far from them that they could have exchanged a word unchaperoned by his throbbing ear.
“OH!” Margaret cried, and, halting suddenly, she draped herself about a lamp-post like a strip of bunting. “Guh-uh-guh-GOODNESS!” she sobbed.