The Wheels of Chance. H. G. Wells

And once he almost ran over something wonderful, a little, low, red beast with a yellowish tail, that went rushing across the road before him. It was the first weasel he had ever seen in his cockney life. There were miles of this, scores of miles of this before him, pinewood and oak forest, purple, heathery moorland and grassy down, lush meadows, where shining rivers wound their lazy way, villages with square-towered, flint churches, and rambling, cheap, and hearty inns, clean, white, country towns, long downhill stretches, where one might ride at one’s ease (overlooking a jolt or so), and far away, at the end of it all, — the sea.

      What mattered a fly or so in the dawn of these delights? Perhaps he had been dashed a minute by the shameful episode of the Young Lady in Grey, and perhaps the memory of it was making itself a little lair in a corner of his brain from which it could distress him in the retrospect by suggesting that he looked like a fool; but for the present that trouble was altogether in abeyance. The man in drab — evidently a swell — had spoken to him as his equal, and the knees of his brown suit and the chequered stockings were ever before his eyes. (Or, rather, you could see the stockings by carrying the head a little to one side.) And to feel, little by little, his mastery over this delightful, treacherous machine, growing and growing! Every half-mile or so his knees reasserted themselves, and he dismounted and sat awhile by the roadside.

      It was at a charming little place between Esher and Cobham, where a bridge crosses a stream, that Mr. Hoopdriver came across the other cyclist in brown. It is well to notice the fact here, although the interview was of the slightest, because it happened that subsequently Hoopdriver saw a great deal more of this other man in brown. The other cyclist in brown had a machine of dazzling newness, and a punctured pneumatic lay across his knees. He was a man of thirty or more, with a whitish face, an aquiline nose, a lank, flaxen moustache, and very fair hair, and he scowled at the job before him. At the sight of him Mr. Hoopdriver pulled himself together, and rode by with the air of one born to the wheel. “A splendid morning,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, “and a fine surface.”

      “The morning and you and the surface be everlastingly damned!” said the other man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble and did not distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of having duly asserted the wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as becomes one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The other man in brown watched his receding aspect. “Greasy proletarian,” said the other man in brown, feeling a prophetic dislike. “Got a suit of brown, the very picture of this. One would think his sole aim in life had been to caricature me. It’s Fortune’s way with me. Look at his insteps on the treadles! Why does Heaven make such men?”

      And having lit a cigarette, the other man in brown returned to the business in hand.

      Mr. Hoopdriver worked up the hill towards Cobham to a point that he felt sure was out of sight of the other man in brown, and then he dismounted and pushed his machine; until the proximity of the village and a proper pride drove him into the saddle again.

      VIII

      Beyond Cobham came a delightful incident, delightful, that is, in its beginning if a trifle indeterminate in the retrospect. It was perhaps halfway between Cobham and Ripley. Mr. Hoopdriver dropped down a little hill, where, unfenced from the road, fine mossy trees and bracken lay on either side; and looking up he saw an open country before him, covered with heather and set with pines, and a yellow road runing across it, and half a mile away perhaps, a little grey figure by the wayside waving something white. “Never!” said Mr. Hoopdriver with his hands tightening on the handles.

      He resumed the treadles, staring away before him, jolted over a stone, wabbled, recovered, and began riding faster at once, with his eyes ahead. “It can’t be,” said Hoopdriver.

      He rode his straightest, and kept his pedals spinning, albeit a limp numbness had resumed possession of his legs.” It Can’T be,” he repeated, feeling every moment more assured that it WAS. “Lord! I don’t know even now,” said Mr. Hoopdriver (legs awhirling), and then, “Blow my legs!”

      But he kept on and drew nearer and nearer, breathing hard and gathering flies like a flypaper. In the valley he was hidden. Then the road began to rise, and the resistance of the pedals grew. As he crested the hill he saw her, not a hundred yards away from him. “It’s her!” he said. “It’s her — right enough. It’s the suit’s done it,” — which was truer even than Mr. Hoopdriver thought. But now she was not waving her handkerchief, she was not even looking at him. She was wheeling her machine slowly along the road towards him, and admiring the pretty wooded hills towards Weybridge. She might have been unaware of his existence for all the recognition he got.

      For a moment horrible doubts troubled Mr. Hoopdriver. Had that handkerchief been a dream? Besides which he was deliquescent and scarlet, and felt so. It must be her coquetry — the handkerchief was indisputable. Should he ride up to her and get off, or get off and ride up to her? It was as well she didn’t look, because he would certainly capsize if he lifted his cap. Perhaps that was her consideration. Even as he hesitated he was upon her. She must have heard his breathing. He gripped the brake. Steady! His right leg waved in the air, and he came down heavily and staggering, but erect. She turned her eyes upon him with admirable surprise.

      Mr. Hoopdriver tried to smile pleasantly, hold up his machine, raise his cap, and bow gracefully. Indeed, he felt that he did as much. He was a man singularly devoid of the minutiae of selfconsciousness, and he was quite unaware of a tail of damp hair lying across his forehead, and just clearing his eyes, and of the general disorder of his coiffure. There was an interrogative pause.

      “What can I have the pleasure — ” began Mr. Haopdriver, insinuatingly. “I mean” (remembering his emancipation and abruptly assuming his most aristocratic intonation), “can I be of any assistance to you?”

      The Young Lady in Grey bit her lower lip and said very prettily, “None, thank you.” She glanced away from him and made as if she would proceed.

      “Oh!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, taken aback and suddenly crestfallen again. It was so unexpected. He tried to grasp the situation. Was she coquetting? Or had he —?

      “Excuse me, one minute,” he said, as she began to wheel her machine again.

      “Yes?” she said, stopping and staring a little, with the colour in her cheeks deepening.

      “I should not have alighted if I had not — imagined that you — er, waved something white — ” He paused.

      She looked at him doubtfully. He Had seen it! She decided that he was not an unredeemed rough taking advantage of a mistake, but an innocent soul meaning well while seeking happiness. “I DID wave my handkerchief,” she said. “I’m very sorry. I am expecting — a friend, a gentleman,” — she seemed to flush pink for a minute. “He is riding a bicycle and dressed in — in brown; and at a distance, you know — ”

      “Oh, quite!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, bearing up in manly fashion against his bitter disappointment. “Certainly.”

      “I’m awfully sorry, you know. Troubling you to dismount, and all that.”

      “No trouble. ‘Ssure you,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, mechanically and bowing over his saddle as if it was a counter. Somehow he could not find it in his heart to tell her that the man was beyond there with a punctured pneumatic. He looked back along the road and tried to think of something else to say. But the gulf in the conversation widened rapidly and hopelessly. “There’s nothing further,” began Mr. Hoopdriver desperately, recurring to his stock of cliches.

      “Nothing, thank you,” she said decisively. And immediately, “This Is the Ripley road?”

      “Certainly,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Ripley is about two miles from here. According to the milestones.”

      “Thank you,” she said warmly. “Thank you so much. I felt sure there was no mistake. And I really am awfully sorry — ”

      “Don’t mention it,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Don’t mention it.” He hesitated and gripped