Immediately Pembroke and I journeyed to the feudal inn. When we arrived a mixture of rain and snow was falling. But I laughed at that. What if I were drenched to the skin with chill rain and snow, my heart was warm, warmer than it had been in many a day. Woman is infallible when she reads the heart of another. Phyllis said that Gretchen loved me; it only remained for me to find her. Pembroke began to grumble.
"I am wet through," he said, as our steaming horses plodded along in the melting snow. "You might have waited till the rain let up."
"I'm just as wet as you are," I replied, "but I do not care."
"I'm hungry and cold, too," he went on.
"I'm not, so it doesn't matter."
"Of course not!" he cried. "What are my troubles to you?"
"Nothing!" I laughed and shook the flakes from my sleeves. "Cousin, I am the happiest man in the world."
"And I'm the most dismal," said he. "I wish you had brought along an umbrella."
"What! Ride a horse with an umbrella over you? Where is your sense of romance?"
"Romance is all well enough," said he, "when your stomach is full and your hide is dry. If you can call this romance, this five-mile ride through rain and snow, you are gifted with a wonderful imagination."