“D’you suppose I can leave you here?”
“Right, then; I’m dead beat.”
For the second time Farquhar picked him up and deposited him in the dog-cart; and they drove on together.
Half a mile beyond this the gates of Fanes confronted the road. As the horse slackened to ascend the hill, the groom jumped down to throw them open, but when he turned he saw that they were open already, and that his master’s carriage was vanishing down the slope. He ran after it for a little way; then with great philosophy relapsed among the bushes and got out his pipe.
Farquhar drove noiselessly down the smooth yellow drive between snow-wreathed acacias, past the stream and past the lawn and past the rookery, till at the turn of the path where it widened to the sweep and the house came in sight, he again pulled up with a jerk.
In the fresh morning sunshine before the open door stood Dolly, in her blue frock, calling the pigeons to be fed. They sailed down to her, blue, and fawn, and white as snow, settling around and upon her, and she scattered handfuls of grain which glittered like gold. Her milk-white skin, her chestnut hair, her cornflower dress were bright and pure in colour as the sunlight itself. One pigeon floated down with outspread quiet wings and alit on her bare head, and she laughed as she shook it off: a careless laugh, a free gesture, which brought the blood to Lucian’s face. Then Farquhar’s hand fell on his arm, and he saw what he had not seen before, what Dolly, with her back turned, still did not see: the figure of a young man in a grey suit in the act of leaning a bicycle against the wall, a bicycle which unkindly refused to stand. He settled it at last, came noiselessly behind, and slipped his arm round the curve of her waist.
Dolly turned to him; the watchers saw her colour blossom and the breaking of light over her beautiful, vivid young face, as her basket slid down the curve of her drooping arm and spilled her golden store.
“You!” she said. “Back already! I’ve wished ten times an hour I’d never sent you, Lal.”
Lucian shut his eyes. Farquhar, without a word, dragged the chestnut round and lashed him till he went flying back up the drive, scattering pebbles at every step.