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XXVIII. THE DEPARTURE FROM CHICHESTER
He caused his 'sister' to be called repeatedly, and when she came down,
explained with a humorous smile his legal relationship to the bicycle
in the yard. "Might be disagreeable, y' know." His anxiety was obvious
enough. "Very well," she said (quite friendly); "hurry breakfast, and
we'll ride out. I want to talk things over with you." The girl seemed
more beautiful than ever after the night's sleep; her hair in comely
dark waves from her forehead, her ungauntleted finger-tips pink and
cool. And how decided she was! Breakfast was a nervous ceremony,
conversation fraternal but thin; the waiter overawed him, and he was
cowed by a multiplicity of forks. But she called him "Chris." They
discussed their route over his sixpenny county map for the sake of
talking, but avoided a decision in the presence of the attendant. The
five-pound note was changed for the bill, and through Hoopdriver's
determination to be quite the gentleman, the waiter and chambermaid got
half a crown each and the ostler a florin. "'Olidays," said the ostler
to himself, without gratitude. The public mounting of the bicycles in
the street was a moment of trepidation. A policeman actually stopped and
watched them from the opposite kerb. Suppose him to come across and ask:
"Is that your bicycle, sir?" Fight? Or drop it and run? It was a time of
bewildering apprehension, too, going through the streets of the town,
so that a milk cart barely escaped destruction under Mr. Hoopdriver's
chancy wheel. That recalled him to a sense of erratic steering, and
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