They pursued the theme for a while; then, piqued by her disadvantageous comparison, he began to make love outright. As he proceeded, her sense of loathing and of impotence increased. She scarcely spoke. Gerard took her silence for assumption of modesty; the satirical smile deepened about his lips. The ponies went down the white road at a spanking pace. They had reached the open country and traffic was scanty. The road undulated between banks pungent with thyme and rosemary; now rose in full view of the sea and the great sweep of coast, now skirted villas nestling in the slopes that heave downwards to the shore from the cool grey Maritime Alps, shimmering against the violet sky. Swarthy, barelegged children ran out from the wayside cottages to stare at the wheels flashing amidst the cloud of dust, and now and then a great shovel-hatted curé looked up from his greasy breviary as the English couple dashed by. Suddenly at the top of a steep incline a bicyclist whirred past them, and coasted swiftly down. The ponies shied, plunged. The phaeton was not fitted with a brake. Gerard, deep in amorous schemes and taken off his guard, slashed the ponies, tried to pull them up, bungled, with the result that they bolted furiously down the hill. Minna, physically timid, shrieked and fastened a desperate clasp on Gerard’s arm. “All right! Hold on tight. Not my arm. Nothing will happen,” he said reassuringly. The cyclist, hearing the frightened horses thundering behind him, set his feet on the pedals, put on the brake, and drifted into the hedge. The light carriage leapt and swung. Minna was terrified. In her fright she had left her parasol to the winds, and clung to Gerard’s body with both hands. She was very near him; for a second he took his eyes from the tossing manes and kissed her on her open mouth. She uttered a little cry and turned aside her head. But excitement had warmed his blood. He kissed her again; she could not get beyond his reach; dared not relax her grasp for fear of instant death. He had her at his mercy. As soon as he became aware of regained control of the animals, he let them follow, for a time, their foolish course, and kissed the frenzied girl beside him over and over again, heedless of her struggles and cries. At last came a slight ascent and Gerard’s powerful arms brought the ponies to their senses. They broke into a moderate pace, and, all danger being over, Minna relaxed her hold and drew as far from Gerard as she could. “You brute!” she cried tempestuously. “You brute! You cowardly brute!” With a mighty wrench he pulled up the ponies at the top of the rise, and they stood trembling, spattering their chests with foam. He turned to reply to Minna, but she rose suddenly and, before he could interfere, was clambering out of the high phaeton. “I shall not stay a moment longer with you. I shall walk back, if I die from it.”