She laughed. “That's precisely what Martha wants me to do!”
“Then fail her and let the other women win. It's too late to repent, anyhow, for here's where we turn off.”
The Imp itself seemed to be running away, so swiftly and silently it covered the new road leading off into the hills. Presently it was climbing them.
“I want to get where no call-boy monotonously repeating 'Doc-tor Bur-rns, Doc-tor Bur-rns', can get hold of me,” the Imp's driver explained. “I suppose you're not dressed—nor shod—for a rough walk of a quarter of a mile where the car can't go?”
“I'll sacrifice skirts and soles,” she promised. “Isn't the air out here glorious? I thought I was tired when I left the city: now I could climb that hill and enjoy it.”
“That's precisely what we'll do, then. There's a view from the top worth the scramble, but I wasn't sure you'd be game for it. Perhaps I'll know you better at the end of this afternoon than I do now. Is there a jolly, athletic girl hidden away under that demure manner of yours I've seen so far, I wonder?”
“Lead the way up that hill and you'll find out,” she answered with a challenging flash of her dark eyes.
He lodged the Imp among a clump of pines, got out the hamper and turned to his companion. She had pulled off her gloves, removed hat and veil and folded her long, gray coat away in the car. This left her dressed in the trim gray skirt of walking length and the gray silk blouse she had worn for shopping. Burns looked at her with approval.
“Transformed by magic from a fashionable lady in street attire to a girl ready for the woods,” was his comment. “I'm glad you leave off the hat—I'll match you by doffing the cap. Now aren't we a pair? Are you in for a rush up that first slope? Jove, I'm not half so tired as I was an hour ago, already!”
He caught her hand in his, his other arm through the hamper handle, and ran with her up the slope. At the edge of the steeper climb to come they stopped, breathing fast. “This isn't the way to begin, of course,” he admitted as they both regained their breath, laughing at their own enthusiasm, “but I couldn't resist that dash—a sort of dash for freedom. Now we'll take it more easily.”