The General was nearly seventy, but he sat his wheel with a military stiffness, holding himself far more carefully than his son, the Professor. Between them came Miss Minnie Contoit, a slim slip of a girl, in a light-brown cloth suit, with her pale, blond hair coiled tightly under a brown alpine hat. They had just come up a hill, and the General’s face was ruddy, but the girl’s was as colorless as ever. Demarest had often wondered why it was that no exercise ever brought a flush to her ivory cheeks.
He watched her now as her grandfather caught sight of him, and cried out: “Hello, Doctor! Out for a spin?”
He saw her look up, and then she glanced away swiftly, as though to choose her course of conduct before she acknowledged his greeting.
“Good afternoon, General; how well you are looking this spring!” said Demarest. “Good afternoon, Professor. And you, too, Miss Contoit. Going round the Park, are you? May I join you?” He looked at her as he asked the question.
It was her grandfather who answered: “Come along, come along! We shall be delighted to have you!”
She said nothing. They were all four going up on the east side of the Mall, and they had already left behind them the bronze mass-meeting of misshapen celebrities which disfigures that broad plateau. A Park omnibus was loitering in front of them, and they could not pass it four abreast.
“Come on, papa,” cried the girl; “let’s leave grandpa and Dr. Demarest to take care of each other! We had better go ahead and show them the way!”
It struck Dr. Demarest that she was glad to get away from him, as though her sudden flight was an instinctive shrinking from his wooing. He smiled and held this for a good sign. He was in no hurry to have his talk out with her, and he did not mean to begin it until a proper opportunity presented itself. He was glad to have her in front of him, where he could follow her movements and get delight out of the play of the sunshine through the branches as it fell molten on her fine, light hair. It pleased him to watch her firm strokes as they came to a hill and to see that she rode with no waste of energy.
The General had done his duty in the long years of the war, and he liked to talk about what he had seen. Dr. Demarest was a good listener, and perhaps this was one reason why the old soldier was always glad of his company. The young doctor was considerate, also, and he never increased his pace beyond the gait most comfortable for his elder companion; and as they drew near to the Metropolitan Museum he guided the General away to the Fifth Avenue entrance and thence back to the main road, by which excursion they avoided the long and steep hill at the top of which stands Cleopatra’s Needle. And as they had ridden on the level rather rapidly they almost caught up with the General’s son and granddaughter.
