But when he reached the gate she saw
him pause, and after a moment he turned aside as if to gain
a cross-road through the park.
She started up and waved her sunshade, but he did not see
her. No doubt he meant to go back with the gamekeeper,
perhaps to the kennels, to see a retriever who had hurt his
leg. Suddenly she was seized by the whim to overtake him.
She threw down the parasol, thrust her letter into her
bodice, and catching up her skirts began to run.
She was slight and light, with a natural ease and quickness
of gait, but she could not recall having run a yard since
she had romped with Owen in his school-days; nor did she
know what impulse moved her now. She only knew that run she
must, that no other motion, short of flight, would have been
buoyant enough for her humour. She seemed to be keeping
pace with some inward rhythm, seeking to give bodily
expression to the lyric rush of her thoughts. The earth
always felt elastic under her, and she had a conscious joy
in treading it; but never had it been as soft and springy as
today. It seemed actually to rise and meet her as she went,
so that she had the feeling, which sometimes came to her in
dreams, of skimming miraculously over short bright waves.
The air, too, seemed to break in waves against her, sweeping
by on its current all the slanted lights and moist sharp
perfumes of the failing day.
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