at way--it proves that she trusts me," Verena said,
with a candour which alarmed her as soon as she had spoken.

Her alarm was just, for Basil Ransom instantly caught up her words, with
a great mocking amazement. "Trusts you? and why shouldn't she trust you?
Are you a little girl of ten and she your governess? Haven't you any
liberty at all, and is she always watching you and holding you to an
account? Have you such vagabond instincts that you are only thought safe
when you are between four walls?" Ransom was going on to speak, in the
same tone, of her having felt it necessary to keep Olive in ignorance of
his visit to Cambridge--a fact they had touched on, by implication, in
their short talk at Mrs. Burrage's; but in a moment he saw that he had
said enough. As for Verena, she had said more than she meant, and the
simplest way to unsay it was to go and get her bonnet and jacket and let
him take her where he liked. Five minutes later he was walking up and
down the parlour, waiting while she prepared herself to go out.

They went up to the Central Park by the elevated railway, and Verena
reflected, as they proceeded, that anyway Olive was probably disposing
of her somehow at Mrs. Burrage's, and that therefore there wasn't much
harm in her just taking this little run on her own responsibility,
especially as she should only be out an hour--which would be just the
duration of Olive's absence. The beauty of the "elevated" was that it
took you up to the Park and brought you back in a few minutes, and you
had all the rest of the hour to walk about and see the place. It was so
pleasant now that one was glad to see it twice over. The long, narrow
enclosure, across which the houses in the streets that border it look at
each other with their glittering windows, bristled with the raw delicacy
of April, and, in spite of its rockwork grottoes and tunnels, its
pavilions and statues, its too numerous paths and pavements, lakes too
big for the landscape and bridges too big for the lakes, expressed all
the fragrance and freshness of the most charming moment of the year.
Once Verena was fairly launched the spirit of the day took possession of
her; she was glad to have come, she forgot about Olive, enjoyed the
sense of wandering in the great city with a remarkable young man who
would take beautiful care of her, while no one else in the world knew
where she was. It was very different from her drive yesterday with Mr.
Burrage, but it was more