“No, I’ve never been in it.”
“Would you like a glimpse? I think it’s the prettiest park in the world.”
She looked at her watch with that twist of the wrist now becoming almost universal and gasped:
“Oh, dear! I must turn back. But it’s just about as short to go through the park. I mustn’t make you late to Lady Clifton-Wyatt’s tea.”
He could find absolutely nothing to say to that except, 143 “It’s mighty pretty along here.” She turned into Blagdon Road and coasted down the long, many-turning dark glade. At the end she failed to steer to the south. The creek itself crossed the road. She drove the car straight through its lilting waters. There was exhilaration in the splashing charge across the ford. Then the road wound along the bank, curling and writhing with it gracefully through thick forests, over bridges and once more right through the bright flood. The creek scrambling among its piled-up boulders was too gay to suggest any amorous mood, and Marie Louise did not quite dare to drive the car down to the water’s edge at any of the little green plateaus where picnics were being celebrated on the grass.
“I always lose my way in this park,” she said. “I expect I’m lost now.”
She began to regret Davidge’s approaching absence, with a strange loneliness. He was becoming tenderly necessary to her. She sighed, hardly meaning to speak aloud, “Too bad you’re going away so soon.”
He was startled to find that his departure meant something to her. He spoke with an affectionate reassurance.
She stopped the car on a lofty plateau where several ladies and gentlemen were exercising their horses at hurdle-jumping. The élan of rush, plunge and recovery could not excite Mamise now.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do. The next time I come to Washington you drive me over to my shipyard and I’ll show you the new boat and the new yard for the rest of the flock.”