“Yes, old cats like Lady Bodmin, who can’t see a man and woman talking—”
“I know! Isn’t it idiotic?” said the girl frankly, turning a relieved face upon him.
If she had not looked, perhaps he would not have spoken. In spite of his manoeuvring for a quiet and uninterrupted time with Claudia, he had no intention of saying anything serious—at least so soon. But, like many another man, he lost his balance when he least expected it, and, curiously enough, as with Harry Hilton, it was her name which broke from his lips.
“Claudia!”
To her unutterable relief, Charlie Carter shot out of a lane, not ten feet ahead of them.
“I say, that ways no good,” he shouted. “I’ve been ever so far. You’ve got to go down this hill, and you’d better look out, for there’s a nasty sharp turn at the bottom.” Claudia neither heard him nor would she have heeded. Anything at such a moment would have seemed better to her than being forced to listen to the words she felt were imminent. She got quickly on her bicycle, and called out joyfully—
“Oh, I am so tired of pushing! Who will race me down the hill?”
“Stop!” cried Fenwick peremptorily.
But nothing would have stopped her then. Escape, escape from what she most dreaded to hear lay before her. She was confident in her own powers, and, with a gay wave of the hand, down the steep rough road she went flying at a speed which she found dangerously intoxicating. Charlie Carter, giving an answering whoop of wild delight, rushed after, and Fenwick, inwardly anathematising the folly of his companions, spun past the boy, and closely followed Claudia’s track, shouting to her to be careful, and each moment expecting to see her overturned by some of the many stones or ruts. In spite, however, of her excitement, she guided herself cleverly, and only called laughingly back without checking her pace. All might have gone well had it not been for the sharp turn at the foot of the hill. What made this perilous, and what neither Fenwick nor Claudia knew, was that another lane emerged at the same point. The old high-road which the three had taken was but little used for carriages, or such a danger would never have been tolerated. Fenwick realised it before the others, owing to his catching sight over the hedge of the top of a carter’s hat. But the cart was jogging down its own hill into the road, and though he pressed his bell, and shouted at the top of his voice, the man did not hear, nor, indeed, so close was Claudia, did it seem possible to avert a collision. By a really prodigious effort, Fenwick shot in between them, pushing her bicycle so violently that it fell on one side, although clear of the cart. He himself was not so fortunate, for the near horse knocked him over, and before the startled driver could pull up, one of the heavy wheels had gone over him.