"If I were a man," she said to herself, but in a very secret shadowy corner of her inmost heart, and in a wordless whisper, "if I were a man, I would go out this minute and find a sweetheart. She should have dark eyes, too, and rough brown hair, and pink cheeks."
In the outer chamber of her mind she said briskly—
"It's a lovely morning. It's a shame to waste it indoors. I'll go out."
The sun was fully up when she stole down through the still sleeping house and out into the garden, now as awake as a lady in full dress at the court of the King.
The garden gate fell to behind her, and the swing of her white skirts went down the green lane. On such a morning who would not wear white? She walked with the quick grace of her nineteen years, and as she went fragments of the undigested poetry that had been her literary diet of late swirled in her mind—
"With tears and smiles from heaven again,
The maiden spring upon the plain
Came in a sunlit fall of rain,"
and so on, though this was July, and not spring at all. And—
"A man had given all other bliss
And all his worldly work for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips."
Her own lips were not perfect, yet, as lips went, they were well enough, and, anyway, kisses would not be wasted on them.
She went down the lane, full of the anxious trembling longing that is youth's unrecognised joy, and at the corner, where the lane meets the high white road, she met him. That is to say, she stopped short, as the whispering silence of the morning was broken by a sudden rattle and a heavy thud, not pleasant to hear. And he and his bicycle fell together, six yards from her feet. The bicycle bounded, and twisted, and settled itself down with bold, resentful clatterings. The man lay without moving.