J—— said that we had left Montargis, and were going on to Cosne—seventy kilometres in all.
“Seventy kilometres! It is too much for Madame,” said the Frenchman, with a bow.
—In my heart I was of the same opinion. But I declared the ride to be a mere nothing, and almost apologised for not making it longer.
He rejoiced in the exercise, he declared with enthusiasm. It was a little fatiguing sometimes, but what would you have? And it seemed that his love for the sport occasionally carried him to the excess of thirty kilometres in a day. At La Charité, between Cosne and Moulins, he had met two Englishmen who were riding safety bicycles with an interpreter. We asked him if he had ever ridden in England. He said No; French roads were so good, and French country so beautiful.——
“Ah, Madame”—with his hand on his heart of course—“I adore the France!”
—Then we shook hands, to the visible delight of the lookers-on, and, with another bow, he told us we had nothing but great beauty from Neuvy to Cosne, a distance of fifteen kilometres.—The whole town watched our start, and, I think, in our shabbiness we must have served the agent’s purpose even better than his circular.
As we wheeled on we saw his tracks, making a zig-zag course along the road, with little credit to his steering. And in front of a lonely farm-house a small boy at our coming drew a long sigh.——
“But here is another!” he called to some one indoors.
—The country really was beautiful. But I was so tired! Every turn of the pedals I felt must be the last. And the thought that we should reach Cosne but to begin the same battle on the morrow, did not help to keep up my spirits. In vain I tried to be sentimental. For the hundredth time I admitted to myself that sentiment might do for a post-chaise, but was impossible on a tricycle.—And all the time J—— kept telling me that if I did not do my share of the work I should kill him. Certainly seventy kilometres against the wind were too much for Madame.
