Standing in the hall while these words were ringing in her head, she stayed after they were done, a rueful figure of indecision. Instinct fought instinct, and the acquired beat down the innate. She regarded the shut door, with wise and tender eyes, without reproach; then bent her head and went swiftly upstairs.
CHAPTER VI
A LEAP OUTWARDS
She arose, a disillusioned bride, with scarcely spirit enough to cling to hope, and with less taste for Urquhart's motor than she had ever had for any duller task-work. Nothing in the house tended to her comfort. James was preoccupied and speechless; the coffee was wrong, the letters late and stupid. She felt herself at cross-purposes with her foolish little world. If James had resought her love overnight, it had been a passing whim. She told herself that love so desired was almost an insult.
Nevertheless at eleven o'clock the motor was there, and Urquhart in the hall held out his hand. "She can sprint," he said; "so much I've learned already. I think you'll be amused."
Lucy hoped so. She owned herself very dull that morning. Well, said Urquhart, he could promise her that she should not be that. She might cry for mercy, he told her, or stifle screams; but she wouldn't stifle yawns. "Macartney," he said, "would sooner see himself led out by a firing-party than in such an engine as I have out there." She smiled at her memory. "James is not of the adventurous," she said—but wasn't he? "Shall I be cold?"
"Put on everything you have," he bade her, "and then everything else. She can do sixty."
"You are trying to terrify me," she said, "but you won't succeed. I don't know why, but I feel that you can drive. I think I have caught Lancelot's complaint."