He called out to her: "Miss Ervine!" She answered, a little shyly: "Oh, how are you, Mr. Speed?" "Rather wet just at present," he replied, striding over the tufts of thick grass towards her. "And you appear to be even wetter than I am. I'm afraid we're in for a severe thunderstorm." "Oh well, I don't mind thunderstorms." "You ought to mind getting wet." He paused, uncertain what to say next. Then instinct made him suddenly begin to talk to her as he might have done to a small child. "My dear young lady, you don't suppose I'm going to leave you here to get drenched to the skin, do you?" She shrugged her shoulders and said: "I don't know what you're going to do." "Have you had anything to eat?" "I don't want anything." "Well, I suggest that we get into the village as quick as we can and stay there till the rain stops. I was also going to suggest that we spent the time in having lunch, but as you don't want anything, we needn't." "But I don't want to wait in the village, Mr. Speed. I was just going to start for home when it came on to rain." Speed said: "Very well, if you want to get home you must let me take you. You're not going to walk home through a thunderstorm. We'll have a cab or something." "And do you really think you'll get a cab in Parminters?" He answered: "I always have a good try to get anything I want to." For all her protests she came with him down the meadow and out into the sodden lane. As they passed the gate the first flash of lightning lit up the sky, followed five seconds after by a crash of thunder. "There!" he exclaimed triumphantly, as if the thunder and lightning somehow strengthened his position with her: "You wouldn't like to walk to Millstead through that, would you?" She shrugged her shoulders and looked at him as if she hated his interference yet found it irresistible. VI It was altogether by good luck that he did get a cab in the village; a Millstead cab had brought some people into Parminters and was just setting back empty on the return journey when Speed met it in the narrow lane. Once again, this time as he opened the cab-door and handed her inside, he gave her that look of triumph, though he was well aware of the luck that he had had. Inside on the black leather cushions he placed in a conspicuously central position his hat and his bundle of essays, and, himself occupying one corner, invited her to take the other. All the time the driver was bustling round lifting the bicycle on to the roof and tying it securely down, Speed sat in his corner, damp to the skin, watching her and remembering that Miss Harrington had told him that she hated men. All the way during that three-mile ride back to Millstead, with the swishing of the rain and the occasional thunder and the steady jog-trot of the horse's hoofs mingling together in a memorable medley of sound, Speed sat snugly in his corner, watching and wondering.