Antony looked very boyish as he made this confession and Nette could but smile as he fingered the little horseshoe consciously. This smile was not lost upon the youth, and turning, he walked on in silence, advancing steadily if delicately along the path, which, though narrow enough to force them into single file, was sufficiently clear to afford a certain margin of safety to 90 Nette's billowy splendours. Antony occasionally held back a threatening bough, and she from time to time moaned apprehensively as some projecting stump detained her drapery for a terrifying second; but for this they exchanged no further conversation.
Antony's faculties, stretched to their utmost since morning, unfortified by food, absolutely refused to rally around him on this occasion, and though he cudgelled his brains for a solution of the probabilities of his conduct when they should emerge from the wood, it was a useless performance. He was capable of walking erectly through the trees, of keeping his shoes bright, of shielding his hat from indignity--and of nothing more. Thus oblivious to all but the sensations of the moment, he plodded steadily on, and it was with an expression of positive stupor that he burst all at once and without the slightest transition of the foliage out of the rude woods into a trim gravel road flanked by incredibly artificial Lombardy poplars. In front of him swept a terraced lawn; far across it rose a lordly Elizabethan mansion composed, apparently, of weathered oak and gay window boxes; a marvellously rolled 91 tennis court swam before his dazzled eyes. As he felt Nette at his side and opened his lips to speak, a loud, triumphant shout burst upon the air and a carriage and pair stationed at the end of the drive sprang into rapid motion towards them.
"'Ere you are, sir! 'Ere! Just in time, sir, jump in! All right, sir--I knew by the lady's dress--could you h'open the door yourself, sir? Mr. Richard said he knew you'd try the old road-- 'owever did you get over the old bridge, sir? I doubt we can make it this late, but we'll try. Excuse me, sir, but there's no time for talk--in you go, sir!"
Under the piercing eye of the garrulous old servant Nette slipped into the brougham and Antony after her, as one in a dream. The fat bays literally galloped along the crushed stone, whirled through an elaborate iron gateway, and devoured the stretch of country road whose scattered houses Antony tried in vain to identify.
"Where are we going?" Nette asked fearfully, but he could only shake his head.
"Somewhere near a railroad station, I hope," he answered; "we couldn't very well walk along the road dressed like this. 92 Evidently this old idiot knows your dress--that's very unfortunate."
"He cannot know it," she insisted, "for it has never been worn. I am sure of it."
"Nonsense," said Antony brutally, and at her incredulous displeasure he softened only so far as to demand:
"Then how did he know you?"
"I don't know," she admitted, and they drew up suddenly among a crowd of carriages and motor-cars gathered around a quaint stone church.