lane, mysterious with possible birds' eggs in the May-green hedges. As
there was not room for three abreast, the colonel made up the
rear-guard, and was consoled by having Miss Middleton's figure to
contemplate; but the readiness of her joining in Crossjay's pastime of
the nest-hunt was not so pleasing to a man that she had wound to a
pitch of excitement. Her scornful accent on "Marriage" rang through
him. Apparently she was beginning to do with him just as she liked,
herself entirely unconcerned.

She kept Crossjay beside her till she dismounted, and the colonel was
left to the procession of elephantine ideas in his head, whose
ponderousness he took for natural weight. We do not with impunity
abandon the initiative. Men who have yielded it are like cavalry put on
the defensive; a very small force with an ictus will scatter them.

Anxiety to recover lost ground reduced the dimensions of his ideas to a
practical standard.

Two ideas were opposed like duellists bent on the slaughter of one
another. Either she amazed him by confirming the suspicions he had
gathered of her sentiments for Willoughby in the moments of his
introduction to her; or she amazed him as a model for coquettes--the
married and the widow might apply to her for lessons.

These combatants exchanged shots, but remained standing; the encounter
was undecided. Whatever the result, no person so seductive as Clara
Middleton had he ever met. Her cry of loathing, "Marriage!" coming from
a girl, rang faintly clear of an ancient virginal aspiration of the sex
to escape from their coil, and bespoke a pure, cold, savage pride that
transplanted his thirst for her to higher fields.