The day was rather windy, and as she drove up Park Lane she had her work cut out for her in the matter of management. The cobs had been newly clipped, and all their nerves appeared to be outside their skins. This Mildred thoroughly enjoyed; she was conscious of the mastery over brute strength which makes the fascination of dealing with horses, and she loved to know that Box longed to bolt and could not manage it, and that Cox wanted to shy at every carriage that passed but did not dare, for that his nerves were outside his skin, and he was aware who sat behind him with whip alert. "The heavenly devils!" thought Mildred to herself as they avoided a curbstone on the one hand by a hair-breadth and a bicycle on the other by half that distance.
Like all fine whips, she infinitely preferred to drive in the streets than in the Park, but to-day they were horribly crowded, and she turned in through Stanhope Gate with the idea of letting the cobs have a good trot through the Park and come out at the Albert Gate. The day was so divine that she thought she would perhaps go out of town, and lunch at Richmond or somewhere, returning in the afternoon. She was dining out that night at Blanche Devereux's, who had a Mexican band coming, which, according to her account, was so thrilling that you didn't know whether you were standing on your head or your heels. This sounded quite promising; she liked a décolleté evening.
So Box and Cox had their hearts' desire, and flew down the road inside the Park parallel to Park Lane. Here a motor-car, performing in a gusty and throbbing manner, was a shock to their sense of decency, and they made a simultaneous dash for the railings, until recalled to their own sense of decency by a vivid cut across their close-shaven backs and a steady pull on their mouths to show them that the whip was punitive, not suggestive of faster progress. The progress, indeed, was fast enough to satisfy even Mildred, who, however, was enjoying herself immensely. Both cobs had their heads free (she, like the wise woman she was in matters of horseflesh, abominating bearing-reins even for the brougham horses, and knowing that for speed they are death and ruin), necks arched, and were stepping high and long. Then, as they came to the bend of the road of the Ladies' Mile, she indicated the right-hand road, and found that they were a little beyond her control. Simultaneously a wayward gust picked up a piece of wandering newspaper and blew it right across Box's blinkers; from there it slid gradually on to Cox's. The same moment both heads were up, and, utterly beyond her control, they bolted straight for the gate at Hyde Park Corner. It is narrow; outside the double tide of traffic roared and jostled.
By good luck or bad luck—it did not seem at the moment to matter in the least—they were straight for the opening. If they had not been they would have upset over the posts or against the arch, but as they were they would charge at racing speed into an omnibus. A policeman outside, Mildred could see, had observed what had happened, and with frantic gesticulations was attempting to stem the double tide of carriages and open a lane for her, and it was with a curious indifference that she knew he would be too late. Passers-by also had looked up and seen, and just as they charged through the arch she saw one rush out full into the roadway in the splendid and desperate attempt, no doubt, to avert the inevitable accident. "What a fool!" she thought. "I am done; why should he be done, too?" Then for the millionth part of a second their eyes met, and they recognised each other.
Then, though she had been cool enough before, she utterly lost her head. She knew that she screamed, "Jack, for God's sake get out of the way!" and simultaneously he had met the horses as a man meets an incoming breaker, struggling to reach some wreck on a rocky shore. With one hand he caught something, rein or blinker, God knows which, with the other the end of the pole. Thus, dragging and scraping and impotently resisting, he was borne off his feet, and they whirled into the mid-stream of traffic.
There was a crash, a cry, the man was jerked off like a fly; one cob went down, and Mildred was thrown out on to the roadway. She still held the reins; she saw a horse pulled up on its haunches just above her, within a yard of her head, and the next moment she had picked herself up unhurt.
On the other side of her wrecked phaeton, jammed against her fallen cob, was an omnibus. Under the centre of it lay the man who had saved her.
Suddenly, to her ears, the loud street hushed into absolute silence. A crowd, springing up like ants on a disturbed hill, swarmed round her, but she knew nothing of them. The omnibus made a half-turn, and slowly drew clear of her own carriage and of that which lay beneath its wheels. And though she had recognised him before in that infinitesimal moment as she galloped through the arch, she might have looked for hours without recognising him now. Hoof and wheel had gone over his head, stamping it out of all semblance of humanity.