It was not long now before the two men who came in the cart had assisted Lawrence into it. At first he refused to sit down on the feather bed. He caught a glimpse of Prudence's laughing face as she said, "If you don't, I shall think you're ungrateful for all we've done for you."
On this the young man sank down on the bed. "I've only been stunned," he said, morosely, "and you needn't make any more fuss about it."
"All right; have it your own way; but I insist on the ribs and the collar-bones. Now I'll go on and prepare the minds of your friends."
Before anything more could be said, Miss Ffolliott pedalled away.
Leander lifted his machine into the cart, and then placed himself between it and the feather bed. The horse started on his walk to Savin Hill.
As he started, Lawrence raised his head and looked back to the spot of ground where he had fallen. He saw something white lying there, and he knew that it was Miss Ffolliott's glove.
Miss Ffolliott herself rode swiftly along the shady, solitary road. She knew the way very well. She had ridden and driven here many times with the man who was lying there in the farm cart. He had been in love with her,—extravagantly, furiously, delightfully. She smiled as she remembered. Some men could make love so much more agreeably than others. She supposed that was a matter of temperament.
And he wasn't hurt very much, after all. And he and Caro were "spoons" now. She smiled more broadly.
"I always suspected that Caro cared," she thought, "and I was right. How funny it is! Well, I shall know precisely the state of the case in three seconds after I've seen them together. And I've come now."
She seemed to slide without propulsion along the road. She whistled two or three bars of a tune she had often whistled while she had sat beside her mother when the latter lady had been up to her neck in ground peat and sprudel water.