[Gutenberg 43508] • The Eddy: A Novel of To-day

The two horses, adaptable striders, trotted teamwise for a while, Louise and Blythe silently giving themselves over to the enjoyment of the eager, tingling air and the brilliant sunshine. They reined up to cross the carriage road and for a while after that, by a sort of tacit understanding, they reduced their horses' pace to a brisk walk.

It is a bromidic truism, but it is none the less true, that it is only possible for a woman to be wholly at her ease in the presence of the man in whom she is not "interested." Louise, as she rode at Blythe's side through the bright vistas of bare, interlacing branches, perhaps would have shrunk from being judged by the mildly accusatory terms of such an axiom; nevertheless, alone with this man, she was wonderingly conscious of being possessed by a speech-cancelling diffidence, a restraint not so much superimposed as involuntarily felt, that was wholly unusual with her in the presence of anyone else. She caught herself, not without flushing when she became aware of her own purpose, in the act of permitting her horse to drop a pace behind in order that she might be free to glance at Blythe's rugged profile and the shapeliness of his head for an instant; for she was beginning to discover that it was oddly difficult for her to meet his frank, direct, generally cheerful gaze. This was, of course, from no lack of candor, but, on the contrary, because she was beginning to fear betrayal through her excessive natural candor. It would have been impossible for her to name any other human being with whom she would have preferred to be riding through the sunny Park on this afternoon; yet this knowledge did not efface the other fact that she was not at her ease with him. She endeavored, in vaguely wondering about this, to assure herself that it was because of certain revelations which she intended to make to Blythe concerning happenings to herself since last she had seen him; but her inner frankness informed her that she was merely searching for a pretext for her slightly provoking diffidence.