XIV. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER REACHED MIDHURST

It was one of my uncle's profoundest remarks that human beings are the

only unreasonable creatures. This observation was so far justified by

Mr. Hoopdriver that, after spending the morning tortuously avoiding the

other man in brown and the Young Lady in Grey, he spent a considerable

part of the afternoon in thinking about the Young Lady in Grey, and

contemplating in an optimistic spirit the possibilities of seeing her

again. Memory and imagination played round her, so that his course was

largely determined by the windings of the road he traversed. Of one

general proposition he was absolutely convinced. "There's something

Juicy wrong with 'em," said he--once even aloud. But what it was he

could not imagine. He recapitulated the facts. "Miss Beaumont--brother

and sister--and the stoppage to quarrel and weep--" it was perplexing

material for a young man of small experience. There was no exertion he

hated so much as inference, and after a time he gave up any attempt

to get at the realities of the case, and let his imagination go free.

Should he ever see her again? Suppose he did--with that other chap not

about. The vision he found pleasantest was an encounter with her, an

unexpected encounter at the annual Dancing Class 'Do' at the Putney

Assembly Rooms. Somehow they would drift together, and he would dance

with her again and again. It was a pleasant vision, for you must

understand that Mr. Hoopdriver danced uncommonly well. Or again, in the

shop, a sudden radiance in the doorway, and she is bowed towards the

Manchester counter. And then to lean over that counter and murmur,

seemingly apropos of the goods under discussion, "I have not forgotten

The Wheels of Chance