He left the busier thoroughfares and turned into the road that led past the Weebers’ house. There was one person in Cape Town, he knew, who viewed his failures leniently, and just then he was curiously eager to meet her. He had not sufficient effrontery to call at the house, but he passed it slowly, and even retraced his steps and passed it a second time, without, however, the result he had hoped for. Disappointed, he returned to his hotel.
It was a surprise encounter when eventually he met her. He was walking along the road one afternoon towards Rondebosch when she overtook him on her cycle as she had done once before, only on this occasion she was not alone. Young Bolitho was riding with her, and they both carried tennis rackets slung on the handlebars of their machines.
She did not recognise him until her machine came abreast of him. She had been unprepared for the encounter, not knowing that he was in Cape Town, and when she met his glance she flushed hotly, and losing control of her machine, swerved violently to one side. Bolitho swerved after her, but she righted herself dexterously, and smiled into his anxious face.
“I’m getting off, Teddy,” she said. “Don’t wait for me. I’ll probably overtake you,—at any rate, I shan’t be far behind... Ride on, please.”
He nodded, and only dimly understanding, and greatly troubled in mind, kept on his course, while Julie slowed down her machine and alighted, and waited for Lawless to come up.
“You!” she cried, and held out her hand to him in glad surprise.
He took the hand, pressed it warmly, and relieved her of the charge of the cycle—the same old well-worn cycle he had wheeled for her before.
“I didn’t know you were back in town,” she said, walking along beside him with flushed, glad young face and smiling eyes. “You’ve come—to stay?”
“For a few days only,” he replied... “I’ve spent three of them already. I began to fear I should miss seeing you.”
“Oh!” she said, and gasped with consternation at the mere thought. “I wish I’d known...”