Only two
individuals made distinct impressions upon him. One of these was the
tall, lithe girl in the black suit, who walked as well as she swam; the
other was also a girl, but younger and less good-looking, and Gifford
Barrett found himself wondering how she could possibly be in so many
places at once. He appeared to be always falling over her, always coming
upon her path, on the cliff, on the moors, at the tiny post office where
it seemed to him that he spent half of his time waiting for the leisurely
distribution of the mails to be completed. She usually wore a grey
bicycle suit, and she was invariably attended by a small grey dog who
took unwarrantable liberties, in the post office, with people's trouser
legs and even had been known to whet his teeth on the softer portions of
umbrellas. To tell the truth, he paid more attention to the dog than he
did to the girl; and he was utterly unconscious of the expression of glee
that crossed Cicely's face, one day, when he exclaimed,--
"Get out, you small brute!" and accompanied the words with a pettish
little kick which reduced the dog to a yelping frenzy.
On one other occasion Cicely had been conscious of penetrating to the
nerve centres of her hero; although, fortunately for her peace of mind,
she did not know the exact way in which she had accomplished the feat.
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