How pleasurable was that hour’s exercise to Darcy! With what delight did her unforeboding spirit take to the ways of a hardy athleticism! ‘Never could she have imagined it so easy. No sooner was she weary of one kind of a trial, dumb-bells, Indian-clubs, or pulleys, than, when her breath began to come short, the watchful instructor stopped her and, after a rest, set her to something else. Her skin pricked and glowed beneath the close but unrestricting suit. Little drops of moisture came out on her face and were gayly brushed away. She could feel herself breathing deeper, her blood running faster and fuller in her veins, her muscles suppling along the bones. She hurled the medicine-ball with fervor. She attacked the punch-ing-bag with ferocity. She swung at the elusive little hand-ball with a violence unhampered by any sense of direction. From time to time she threw a glance, hopefully inviting approval, at the stonily watchful visage of Mr. Andy Dunne.
The approval did not manifest itself. Darcy, had she but known it, was going through that schedule of the mildest type known derisively to Andy’s academy as “the consumptive’s stunt.” At the conclusion of a trot three times around the room which she conceived herself as performing with a light and springy step (“like a three-legged goat” was Mr. Dunne’s mental comparison), that gentleman said, “Nuff,” a word which later was to rank in his pupil’s consciousness as the one assuaging thing in an agonized world. The regulation first-day’s-end catechism then took place.
“How d’yah feel?”
“Fine!”
“’s good! Lame?”
“Not a bit.”
“Yah’ll stiffen up later. Don’t let it bother yah. Hot bath in the morning.”
“All right.”
“Same time day after tomorra.” He busied himself replacing the deranged apparatus. “How’s the appetite?” he asked carelessly.
“It hasn’t been so very good.”