Page:The wheels of chance -- a bicycling idyll.djvu/176

162 "I know," said Hoopdriver.

"And now, here I am—"

"I will do anything," said Hoopdriver.

She thought. "You cannot imagine my stepmother. No! I could not describe her—"

"I am entirely at your service. I will help you with all my power."

"I have lost an Illusion and found a Knight-errant." She spoke of Bechamel as the Illusion.

Mr. Hoopdriver felt flattered. But he had no adequate answer.

"I'm thinking," he said, full of a rapture of protective responsibility, "what we had best be doing. You are tired, you know. And we can't wander all night—after the day we've had."

"That was Chichester we were near?" she asked.

"If," he meditated, with a tremble in his voice, "you would make me your brother, Miss Beaumont."

"Yes?"

"We could stop there together—"

She took a minute to answer. "I am going to light these lamps," said Hoopdriver. He bent down to his own, and struck a match on his shoe. She looked at his face in its light, grave and intent. How could she ever have thought him common or absurd?

"But you must tell me your name—brother," she said.