It was unforgivable. He always WAS a fool.
You could tell from her manner she didn't think him a gentleman.
One glance, and she seemed to look clear through him and all his
presence. What rot it was venturing to speak to a girl like that!
With her education she was bound to see through him at once.
How nicely she spoke too! nice clear-cut words! She made him feel
what slush his own accent was. And that last silly remark. What
was it ? 'Not being the other gentleman, you know!' No point in
it. And 'GENTLEMAN!' What COULD she be thinking of him?
But really the Young Lady in Grey had dismissed Hoopdriver from
her thoughts almost before he had vanished round the corner. She
had thought no ill of him. His manifest awe and admiration of her
had given her not an atom of offence. But for her just now there
were weightier things to think about, things that would affect
all the rest of her life. She continued slowly walking her
machine Londonward. Presently she stopped. "Oh! Why DOESN'T he
come?" she said, and stamped her foot petulantly. Then, as if in
answer, coming down the hill among the trees, appeared the other
man in brown, dismounted and wheeling his machine.
HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER WAS HAUNTED
IX
As Mr. Hoopdriver rode swaggering along the Ripley road, it came
to him, with an unwarrantable sense of comfort, that he had seen
the last of the Young Lady in Grey. But the ill-concealed bladery
of the machine, the present machinery of Fate, the deus ex
machina, so to speak, was against him.
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