CHAPTER II. — “AS THE WIND BLOWS.”

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      A flaw in that pentagram of a time-table, that pentagram by which the demons of distraction were to be excluded from Mr. Lewisham’s career to Greatness, was the absence of a clause forbidding study out of doors. It was the day after the trivial window peeping of the last chapter that this gap in the time-table became apparent, a day if possible more gracious and alluring than its predecessor, and at half-past twelve, instead of returning from the school directly to his lodging, Mr. Lewisham escaped through the omission and made his way—Horace in pocket—to the park gates and so to the avenue of ancient trees that encircles the broad Whortley domain. He dismissed a suspicion of his motive with perfect success. In the avenue—for the path is but little frequented—one might expect to read undisturbed. The open air, the erect attitude, are surely better than sitting in a stuffy, enervating bedroom. The open air is distinctly healthy, hardy, simple. …

      The day was breezy, and there was a perpetual rustling, a going and coming in the budding trees.

      The network of the beeches was full of golden sunlight, and all the lower branches were shot with horizontal dashes of new-born green.

      “Tu, nisi ventis Debes ludibrium, cave.”

      was the appropriate matter of Mr. Lewisham’s thoughts, and he was mechanically trying to keep the book open in three places at once, at the text, the notes, and the literal translation, while he turned up the vocabulary for ludibrium, when his attention, wandering dangerously near the top of the page, fell over the edge and escaped with incredible swiftness down the avenue. …

      A girl, wearing a straw hat adorned with white blossom, was advancing towards him. Her occupation, too, was literary. Indeed, she was so busy writing that evidently she did not perceive him.

      Unreasonable emotions descended upon Mr. Lewisham—emotions that are unaccountable on the mere hypothesis of a casual meeting. Something was whispered; it sounded suspiciously like “It’s her!” He advanced with his fingers in his book, ready to retreat to its pages if she looked up, and watched her over it. Ludibrium passed out of his universe. She was clearly unaware of his nearness, he thought, intent upon her writing, whatever that might be. He wondered what it might be. Her face, foreshortened by her downward regard, seemed infantile. Her fluttering skirt was short, and showed her shoes and ankles. He noted her graceful, easy steps. A figure of health and lightness it was, sunlit, and advancing towards him, something, as he afterwards recalled with a certain astonishment, quite outside the Schema.

      Nearer she came and nearer, her eyes still downcast. He was full of vague, stupid promptings towards an uncalled-for intercourse. It was curious she did not see him. He began to expect almost painfully the moment when she would look up, though what there was to expect—! He thought of what she would see when she discovered him, and wondered where the tassel of his cap might be hanging—it sometimes occluded one eye. It was of course quite impossible to put up a hand and investigate. He was near trembling with excitement. His paces, acts which are usually automatic, became uncertain and difficult. One might have thought he had never passed a human being before. Still nearer, ten yards now, nine, eight. Would she go past without looking up? …

      Then their eyes met.

      She had hazel eyes, but Mr. Lewisham, being quite an amateur about eyes, could find no words for them. She looked demurely into his face. She seemed to find nothing there. She glanced away from him among the trees, and passed, and nothing remained in front of him but an empty avenue, a sunlit, green-shot void.

      The incident was over.

      From far away the soughing of the breeze swept towards him, and in a moment all the twigs about him were quivering and rustling and the boughs creaking with a gust of wind. It seemed to urge him away from her. The faded dead leaves that had once been green and young sprang up, raced one another, leapt, danced and pirouetted, and then something large struck him on the neck, stayed for a startling moment, and drove past him up the avenue.

      Something vividly white! A sheet of paper—the sheet upon which she had been writing!

      For what seemed a long time he did not grasp the situation. He glanced over his shoulder and understood suddenly. His awkwardness vanished. Horace in hand, he gave chase, and in ten paces had secured the fugitive document. He turned towards her, flushed with triumph, the quarry in his hand. He had as he picked it up seen what was written, but the situation dominated him for the instant. He made a stride towards her, and only then understood what he had seen. Lines of a measured length and capitals! Could it really be—? He stopped. He looked again, eyebrows rising. He held it before him, staring now quite frankly. It had been written with a stylographic pen. Thus it ran:—

      “Come! Sharp’s the word.”

      And then again,

      “Come! Sharp’s the word.”

      And then,

      “Come! Sharp’s the word.”

      “Come! Sharp’s the word.”

      And so on all down the page, in a boyish hand uncommonly like Frobisher ii.’s.

      Surely! “I say!” said Mr. Lewisham, struggling with, the new aspect and forgetting all his manners in his surprise. … He remembered giving the imposition quite well:—Frobisher ii. had repeated the exhortation just a little too loudly—had brought the thing upon himself. To find her doing this jarred oddly upon certain vague preconceptions he had formed of her. Somehow it seemed as if she had betrayed him. That of course was only for the instant.

      She had come up with him now. “May I have my sheet of paper, please?” she said with a catching of her breath. She was a couple of inches less in height than he. Do you observe her half-open lips? said Mother Nature in a noiseless aside to Mr. Lewisham—a thing he afterwards recalled. In her eyes was a touch of apprehension.

      “I say,” he said, with protest still uppermost, “you oughtn’t to do this.”

      “Do what?”

      “This. Impositions. For my boys.”

      She raised her eyebrows, then knitted them momentarily, and looked at him. “Are you Mr. Lewisham?” she asked with an affectation of entire ignorance and discovery.

      She knew him perfectly well, which was one reason why she was writing the imposition, but pretending not to know gave her something to say.

      Mr. Lewisham nodded.

      “Of all people! Then”—frankly—“you have just found me out.”

      “I am afraid I have,” said Lewisham. “I am afraid I have found you out.”

      They looked at one another for the next move. She decided to plead in extenuation.

      “Teddy Frobisher is my cousin. I know it’s very wrong, but he seemed to have such a lot to do and to be in such trouble. And I had nothing to do. In fact, it was I who offered. …”

      She stopped and looked at him. She seemed to consider her remark complete.

      That meeting of the eyes had an oddly disconcerting quality. He tried to keep to the business of the imposition. “You ought not to have done that,” he said, encountering her steadfastly.

      She looked down and then into his face again. “No,” she said. “I suppose I ought not to. I’m very sorry.”

      Her looking down and up again produced