ive
some," the dashing exhibition forced him to admit. "Of course Pendennis
isn't as young as he was, and I don't care to push him too hard. I
wouldn't mind handling one of those machines on the road like that,
myself, if that was all there was to it--no cranking to do, or fooling
with the engine. Well, I enjoyed part of that lunch quite a lot, Lucy."

"The salad?"

"No. Your whispering to me."

"Blarney!"

George made no response, but checked Pendennis to a walk. Whereupon Lucy
protested quickly: "Oh, don't!"

"Why? Do you want him to trot his legs off?"

"No, but--"

"No, but'--what?"

She spoke with apparent gravity: "I know when you make him walk it's so
you can give all your attention to--to proposing to me again!"

And as she turned a face of exaggerated color to him, "By the Lord, but
you're a little witch!" George cried.

"George, do let Pendennis trot again!"

"I won't!"

She clucked to the horse. "Get up, Pendennis! Trot! Go on! Commence!"

Pendennis paid no attention; she meant nothing to him, and George
laughed at her fondly. "You are the prettiest thing in this world,
Lucy!" he exclaimed. "When I see you in winter, in furs, with your
cheeks red, I think you're prettiest then, but when I see you in summer,
in a straw hat and a shirtwaist and a duck skirt and white gloves and
those little silver buckled slippers, and your rose-coloured parasol,
and your cheeks not red but with a kind of pinky glow about them, then I
see I must have been wrong about the winter! When are you going to drop
the 'almost' and say we're really engaged?"

"Oh, not for years! So there's the answer, and Let's trot again."

But George was persistent; moreover, he had become serious during the
last minute or two. "I want to know," he said. "I really mean it."

"Let's don't be serious, George," she begged him hopefully. "Let's talk
of something pleasant."

He was a little offended. "Then it isn't pleasant for you to know that I
want to marry you?"

At this she became as serious as he could have asked; she looked down,
and her lip quivered like that of a child about to cry. Suddenly she put
her hand upon one of his for just an instant, and then withdrew it.

"Lucy!" he said huskily. "Dear, what's the matter? You look as if
you were going to cry. You always do that," he went on plaintively,
"whenever I can get you to talk about marrying me."

"I know it," she murmured.

"Well, why do you?"

Her eyelids flickere