“Are you admiring my sister’s brooch?” asked Miss McDonnell. “Eh, I think it’s grand. Don’t you?”
Kathleen giggled lightly at this, and asked her sister how she could, and then Michael with a boldness that on reflection made him catch his breath at the imagination of it, said that while he was admiring Miss Kathleen’s brooch he was admiring her eyes still more.
“Oh, Mr. Fane. How can you!” exclaimed Kathleen.
“Well, he’s got good taste, I’m sure,” said Miss McDonnell. “But, there, after all, what can you expect from an Irish girl? All Irish girls have fine eyes.”
When Michael went to bed he felt that on the whole he had acquitted himself that first evening with considerable success, and as he fell asleep he dreamed triumphantly of a daring to-morrow.
It was an April day, whose deeps of azure sky made the diverse foliage of spring burn in one ardent green. Such a day spread out before his windows set Michael on fire for its commemoration, and he made up his mind to propose a long bicycling expedition to the two Miss McDonnells. He wished that it were not necessary to invite the elder sister, but not even this April morning could embolden him so far as to ask Kathleen alone. Mrs. Fane smilingly approved of his proposal, but suggested that on such a warm day it would be wiser not to start until after lunch. So it was arranged, and Michael thoroughly enjoyed the consciousness of escorting these girls out of Bournemouth on their trim bicycles. Indeed, he enjoyed his position so much that he continually looked in the shop-windows, as they rode past, to observe the effect and was so much charmed by the result that he crossed in front of Miss McDonnell, and upset her and her bicycle in the middle of the town.
“Eh, that’s a nuisance,” said Miss McDonnell, surveying bent handlebars and inner tyre swelling like a toy balloon along the rim. “That was quite a mishap,” she added, shaking the dust from her skirt.
Michael was in despair over his clumsiness, especially when Miss Kathleen McDonnell remarked that there went the ride she’d been looking forward to all day.
“Well, you two go on an I’ll walk back,” Miss McDonnell offered.
“Oh, but I can easily hire another machine,” said Michael.