"Had not you better follow her example?" he asks, speaking rather formally, and looking toward the coach, where with smiling profile and neat hair, my rival is sitting, reveling among the flesh-pots.
Something in the sight of her sleek, smooth tidiness, joined to the consciousness of my own miserable, blowsed disorder, stings me more even than the rain-drops are doing.
"Not I!" I answer, brusquely; "that is what I trust I shall never do!"
He passes by my sneer without notice.
"In this rain you will be drenched in two minutes."
"Après!"
"Après!" he repeats, impatiently, "après? you will catch your death of cold!"
"And you will be a widower!" reply I, with a bitter smile.
Barbara is as obstinate as I am. She, too, seems to prefer the spite of the elements to disturbing the tête-à-tête in the coach. Musgrave has made her as comfortable as he can, with her back against the poor little Scotch fir, and a plaid over both their heads.
The feast proceeds in solemn silence. Even if we had the heart to talk, the difficulty of making ourselves heard would quite check the inclination.