back.

"Bravo!" cried Mr. Crewe, leaning on the steering wheel and watching
the performance with delight. Never, he thought, had Victoria been more
appealing; strangely enough, he had not remembered that she was quite
so handsome, or that her colour was so vivid; or that her body was so
straight and long and supple. He liked the way in which she gave it to
that horse, and he made up his mind that she would grace any position,
however high. Presently the horse made a leap into the road in front of
the motor and stood trembling, ready to bolt.

"For Heaven's sake, Humphrey," she cried, "shut off your power? Don't
sit there like an idiot--do you think I'm doing this for pleasure?"

Mr. Crewe good-naturedly turned off his switch, and the motor, with a
dying sigh, was silent. He even liked the notion of being commanded to
do a thing; there was a relish about it that was new. The other women of
his acquaintance addressed him more deferentially.

"Get hold of the bridle," he said to the chauffeur. "You've got no
business to have an animal like that," was his remark to Victoria.

"Don't touch him!" she said to the man, who was approaching with a true
machinist's fear of a high-spirited horse. "You've got no business to
have a motor like that, if you can't handle it any better than you do."

"You managed him all right. I'll say that for you," said Mr. Crewe.

"No thanks to you," she replied. Now that the horse was comparatively
quiet, she sat and regarded Mr. Crewe with an amusement which was
gradually getting the better of her anger. A few moments since, and
she wished with great intensity that she had been using the whip on his
shoulders instead. Now that she had time to gather up the threads of the
situation, the irresistibly comic aspect of it grew upon her, and little
creases came into the corners of her eyes--which Mr. Crewe admired.
She recalled--with indignation, to be sure--the conversation she had
overheard in the dining room of the Duncan house, but her indignation
was particularly directed, on that occasion, towards Mr. Tooting. Here
was Humphrey Crewe, sitting talking to her in the road--Humphrey Crewe,
whose candidacy for the governorship impugned her father's management
of the Northeastern Railroads--and she was unable to take the matter
seriously! There must be something wrong with her, she thought.

"So you're home again," Mr. Crewe observed, his eyes still bearing
witness to the indubitable fact. "I sho