"Let Captain Mount ride your horse, and do you come into the carriage. I have so much to tell you—"
I made what excuse I could. She tossed her chin.
"I shall die of ennui," she said.
"Count the thraves in the stubble," said I, laughing.
"And talk to my five wits of the harvest? How amusing!" she retorted, indignantly.
"Repent the past, then," I suggested, smiling.
"Ay—but 'tis one blank expanse of white innocence, with never a stain to mark for repentance. My past is spotless, Michael—spotless—like a fox-pelt, all of a colour."
Now, though we call foxes red, their ear-tips are jet black and their brushes and bellies touched with white. But she was right; your spotless fox can have no dealings with a dappled fawn.
I signalled the footman and post-boys; the chaise creaked off down the road, and I dropped behind, turning a sober face to the rain-washed brightness of the world.
So we journeyed, coming into dry roads towards noon, where no rain had fallen. And already it seemed to me my nostrils savoured that faint raw perfume of the mounting sea, which only those who have lived their whole lives inland can wind at great distances. It is not a perfume either; it is a taste that steals into the mouth and tingles far back, above the tongue. And it is strange to say so, but those who never before have tasted the scent know it for what it is by instinct, and fall into a restless reverie, searching to think where they have savoured that same enchanted ocean breath before.