George laughed. “Do you always spend your
afternoons like this?”
“As a rule, yes. I have been fifteen years
at St. Peter’s awaiting that day when through
pure ennui the examiners will pass me. It will
be a sad wrench to leave the dear old home.”
He continued, a tinge of melancholy in his voice:
“You know, I am the last of the old brigade.
The medical student no longer riots. His name
is no longer a byword; he is a rabbit. Alone,
undismayed, I uphold the old traditions. I am,
so to speak, one of the old aristocracy. Beneath
the snug characteristics of the latter-day student—his
sweet abhorrence of a rag, his nasty delight in plays
which he calls ‘hot-stuff,’ his cigarettes
and his chess-playing—beneath these my head,
like Henley’s, is bloody but unbowed. Forgive
a tear.”
The shower ceased; the tea was finished; the pretty
waitress was coyly singeing her modesty in the attractive
candle of Mr. Franklyn’s suggestions. George
left them at the game; strolled aimlessly towards
the Marble Arch; beyond it; to the right, and so into
a quiet square.
Here comes my heroine.
The hansom, as George walked, was coming towards him—smartly,
with a jingle of bells; skimming the kerb. As
it reached him (recall that shower) the horse slipped,
stumbled, came on its knees.
Down came the shafts; out shot the girl.
The doors were wide; the impetus took her in her stride.
One tiny foot dabbed at the platform’s edge;
the other twinkled—patent leather and silver
buckle—at the step, missed it, plunged with
a giant stride for the pavement.
“Mercy!” she cried, and came like a shower
of roses swirling into George’s arms.
Completely he caught her. About his legs whipped
her skirts; against him pressed her panting bosom;
his arms—the action was instinctive—
locked around her; the adorable perfume of her came
on him like breeze from a violet bed; her very cheek
brushed his lips—since the first kiss it
was the nearest thing possible to a kiss.
She twisted backwards. Modesty chased alarm across
her face—caught, battled, overcame it;
flamed triumphant.
Fright at her accident drove her pale; shame at the
manner of her descent—leg to the knee and
an indelicacy of petticoats—agitated she
had glimpsed it as she leapt—flushed her
crimson from the line of her dress about her throat
to the wave of her hair upon her brow.
She twisted back. “Oh, what must you think
of me?” she gasped.
He simply could not say.
Moving Passages With A Heroine.
George could not say.
His senses were washed aswim by this torrent of beauty
poured unexpected through eyes to brain. It surged
the centres to violent commotion, one jostling another
in a whirlpool of conflict. Out of the tumult
alarm flashed down the wires to his heart—set
it banging; flashed in wild message to his tongue—locked
it.
