ouis' irresponsible suggestion she had a vision of
the house with county-court bailiffs lodged in the kitchen.... She had
only to say--"Yes, let's go," and they would be off on the absurd and
wicked expedition.

"I'd really rather not," she said, smiling, but serious.

"All serene. But, anyhow, next week's Easter, and we shall have to go
somewhere then, you know."

She put her hands on his shoulders and looked close at him, knowing
that she must use her power and that the heavy dusk would help her.

"Why?" she asked again. "I'd much sooner stay here at Easter. Truly I
would!... With you!"

The episode ended with an embrace. She had won.

"Very well! Very well!" said Louis. "Easter in the coal-cellar if you
like. I'm on for anything."

"But don't you _see_, dearest?" she said.

And he imitated her emphasis, full of teasing good humour--

"Yes, I _see_, dearest."

She breathed relief, and asked--

"Are you going to give me my bicycle lesson?"

III

Louis had borrowed a bicycle for Rachel to ruin while learning to
ride. He said that a friend had lent it to him--a man in Hanbridge
whose mother had given up riding on account of stoutness--but who
exactly this friend was Rachel knew not, Louis' information being
characteristically sketchy and incomplete; and with his air of candour
and good humour he had a strange way of warding off questions; so that
already Rachel had grown used to a phrase which she would utter only
in her mind, "I don't like to ask him--"

It pleased Louis to ride this bicycle out of the back yard, down
the sloping entry, and then steer it through another narrow gateway,
across the pavement, and let it solemnly bump, first with the front
wheel and then with the back wheel, from the pavement into the road.
During this feat he stood on the pedals. He turned the machine up
Bycars Lane, and steadily climbed the steep at Rachel's walking pace.
And Rachel, hurrying by his side, watched in the obscurity the play of
his ankles as he put into practice the principles of pedalling which
he had preached. He was a graceful rider; every movement was natural
and elegant. Rachel considered him to be the most graceful cyclist
that ever was. She was fascinated by the revolutions of his feet.

She felt ecstatically happy. The episode of his caprice for the
seaside was absolutely forgotten; after all, she asked for nothing
more than possession of him, and she had that, though indeed it seemed
too marv