Page:Arthur Machen - The Hill of Dreams.djvu/108

THE HILL OF DREAMS making signals to Edith all the time, and Lieutenant Gatwick had gone off in disgust, and he had promised to bring her a puppy 'by Vick out of Wasp.' At last the poor girl could bear it no longer:

'Yes, it's very sweet,' she said at last. 'When did you say you were going to London, Mr. Taylor?'

It was about the time that his disappointment became known to everybody, and the shot told. He gave her a piteous look and slunk off, 'just like the dog when he's had a whipping,' to use Edith's own expression. Two or three lessons of this description produced their due effect; and when he saw a male Dixon or Gervase approaching him he bit his lip and summoned up his courage. But when he descried a 'ministering angel' he made haste and hid behind a hedge or took to the woods. In course of time the desire to escape became an instinct, to be followed as a matter of course; in the same way he avoided the adders on the mountain. His old ideals were almost if not quite forgotten; he knew that the female of the bête humaine, like the adder, would in all probability sting, and he therefore shrank from its trail, but without any feeling of special 98