ar
to go on. By that time it was afternoon. I went downstairs. Most of our
people were playing bridge, among them Larry and Mrs. Shuster, and Mr.
Caspian. Molly and Jack were not there. Neither was Mr. Storm. When he
saw me Mr. Caspian got up, and told his table they must make a dummy. I
wished then I had stayed in my room, but it was too late. The best I
could do was to walk out on the veranda--an immense veranda where the
most fierce rain could not follow you to the chairs against the wall.

Molly and Jack love fresh air, so I thought perhaps to find them sitting
out there. But they were not to be seen; and when Mr. Caspian came on
and on after me, though he hates what they love, I took a most desperate
resolution. I went straight ahead as if I had come downstairs to do it,
and walked right off the veranda into the pouring rain. I had no
umbrella, and my head was bare and I had on a dress of white shantung
silk. I knew he wouldn't follow me into the rain, and he didn't. He
stood at the top of the steps and called after me that I was a crazy
girl. "Come back!" he said, as if he had the right to order me about.
"You will get soaked to your skin and catch your death of cold!"

[Illustration: "The young, slender birches of the mountain waysides"]

I looked back just long enough to answer that I _loved_ to be soaked to
my skin, and I was not afraid of catching the cold. All I wanted was
that he did not catch me. But I did not say this part aloud. He called
out something more, but I had got too far away to hear, for I was
walking fast, and the rain made a loud, sweet sound, pattering on
leaves. When I had looked back, I had seen something more than the
figure of Mr. Caspian standing on the steps in his nice white flannel
clothes: I had seen Molly and Jack and Mr. Storm. They were not on the
side of the veranda I had come out on, but just round the corner,
talking together in great earnest. I did not think they saw me; but you
shall know by and by!

I must have seemed like a mad one walking along with my head up in all
that rain, as if I were out for my pleasure. But I did not care. I felt
not to care for anything. It did not seem to matter what happened to me;
I wished that I could take cold and die. I found a path under trees,
winding up a beautiful high hill. On one side was rock, and I wished a
large piece would fall on my head so I should never have to go back to
the hotel. But that was selfish to Larry, for I could