Falling in love is like committing crime; it tends to make you secretive. You will practise unusual deceptions and put yourself to all kinds of ridiculous inconvenience to keep the sweet and shameful fact, that a woman has attracted you, from becoming known. My grandmother had set her heart on my going to Woadley. There was no apparent reason why I shouldn’t go. It would be much easier to make the journey, than to have to concoct some silly excuse for not having gone. So, with great reluctance, I set out, having determined to get there and back with every haste, so that I might have time to resume my search for Vi before nightfall.
I had been walking upwards of an hour and was descending a curving country lane, when I heard the smart trotting of a horse behind. The banks rose steeply on either side. The road was narrow and dusty. I clambered up the bank to the right among wild flowers to let the conveyance go by. It proved to be a two-wheeled governess-car, such as ply for hire by the Ransby Esplanade. In it were sitting Dorrie and Vi. Vi had her back towards me but, as they were passing, Dorrie caught sight of me. She commenced to shout and wave, crying, “There he ith. There he ith.” They were going too fast on the downgrade to draw up quickly, and so vanished round a bend. Then I heard that they had halted.
As I came up with the conveyance, Dorrie reached out her arms impulsively and hugged me. She was all excitement. Before anything could be said, she began to scold me. “Naughty man. I wanted you to play thips with me thith morning, like you did yetherday.”
I was looking across the child’s shoulder at Vi. Her color had risen. I could swear that beneath her gentle attitude of complete control her heart was beating wildly. Her eyes told a tale. They had a startled, frightened, glad expression, and were extremely bright.
“I should have liked to play with you, little girl,” I said, “but I didn’t know where you were staying. I looked for you this morning, but couldn’t find you.”
“Dorrie seems to think that you belong to her,” said Vi, in her laughing voice. “She’s a little bit spoilt, you know. If she wants anything, she wants it badly. She can’t wait. So, when we didn’t run across you, she began to worry herself sick. If we hadn’t found you, I expect there’d have been an advertisement in to-morrow’s paper for the young man who played ships with a little girl on the north beach.”
“You won’t go away again,” coaxed Dorrie, patting my face.
“Where are you walking?” asked Vi.
“To Woadley.”
“That’s where we’re going, so if you don’t mind the squeeze, you’d better get in and ride.”