Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/98



plunged over the ridge by a steep path to the lake, in order to make the short return by the shore. The wind was now blowing hard and the waves running high. I began to feel like taking it easy, but Cornelia is indefatigable. She drew up her shoulders, threw back her head, drew a deep breath, and went cutting into the wind like a gallant yacht.

"Oh let's slow down a bit," I called. "I've only just begun to understand something. Something very important about happiness. It flashed into my mind—literally flashed—as you struck that Samothracian pace northward."

"If it's as important as that—" she said, relenting a little in her stride. "But don't you like to walk fast? Nothing makes me so happy."

"I have a theory," I said. "One can't walk fast when one has a theory. It's a theory for which you are partly, perhaps mainly, responsible."

"Then it isn't horrid, is it?"

"Oh no! It is very nice indeed. But even now, while we delay, it has grown into three theories. In