Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/121

 Mr. Polly was on his feet in an instant. “Dear me! Can I be of any assistance?” he said with deferential gallantry.

“I don’t know,” said the young lady, and regarded him calmly with clear blue eyes.

“I didn’t know there was anyone here,” she added.

“Sorry,” said Mr. Polly, “if I am intrudaceous. I didn’t know you didn’t want me to be here.”

She reflected for a moment on the word. “It isn’t that,” she said, surveying him.

“I oughtn’t to get over the wall,” she explained. “It’s out of bounds. At least in term time. But this being holidays”

Her manner placed the matter before him.

“Holidays is different,” said Mr. Polly.

“I don’t want to actually break the rules,” she said.

“Leave them behind you,” said Mr. Polly with a catch of the breath, “where they are safe”; and marvelling at his own wit and daring, and indeed trembling within himself, he held out a hand for her.

She brought another brown leg from the unknown, and arranged her skirt with a dexterity altogether feminine. “I think I’ll stay on the wall,” she decided. “So long as some of me’s in bounds”

She continued to regard him with eyes that presently joined dancing in an irresistible smile of satisfaction. Mr. Polly smiled in return.

“You bicycle?” she said.