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The Wheels of Chance-Part8_H. G. WELLS (1866-1946)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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her again? Suppose he did--with that other chap not about. The



vision he found pleasantest was an counter" target="_blank" title="vt.&n.偶然相遇；冲突">encounter with her, an

unexpected counter" target="_blank" title="vt.&n.偶然相遇；冲突">encounter at the annual Dancing Class 'Do' at the



Putney Assembly Rooms. Somehow they would drift together, and he

would dance with her again and again. It was a pleasant vision,



for you must understand that Mr. Hoopdriver danced uncommonly

well. Or again, in the shop, a sudden radiance in the doorway,



and she is bowed towards the Manchester counter. And then to lean

over that counter and murmur, seemingly apropos of the goods



under discussion, "I have not forgotten that morning on the

Portsmouth road," and lower, "I never shall forget."



At Northchapel Mr. Hoopdriver consulted his map and took counsel

and weighed his course of action. Petworth seemed a possible



resting-place, or Pullborough; Midhurst seemed too near, and any

place over the Downs beyond, too far, and so he meandered towards



Petworth, posing himself perpetually and loitering, gathering

wild flowers and wondering why they had no names--for he had



never heard of any--dropping them furtively at the sight of a

stranger, and generally 'mucking about.' There were purple



vetches in the hedges, meadowsweet, honeysuckle, belated

brambles--but the dog-roses had already gone; there were green



and red blackberries, stellarias, and dandelions, and in another

place white dead nettles, traveller's-joy, clinging bedstraw,



grasses flowering, white campions, and ragged robins. One

cornfield was glorious with poppies, bright scarlet and purple



white, and the blue corn-flowers were beginning. In the lanes the

trees met overhead, and the wisps of hay still hung to the



straggling hedges. Iri one of the main roads he steered a

perilous passage through a dozen surly dun oxen. Here and there



were little cottages, and picturesque beer-houses with the vivid

brewers' boards of blue and scarlet, and once a broad green and a



church, and an expanse of some hundred houses or so. Then he came

to a pebbly rivulet that emerged between clumps of sedge



loosestrife and forget-me-nots under an arch of trees, and

rippled across the road, and there he dismounted, longing to take



off shoes and stockings--those stylish chequered stockings were

now all dimmed with dust --and paddle his lean legs in the



chuckling cheerful water. But instead he sat in a manly attitude,

smoking a cigarette, for fear lest the Young Lady in Grey should



come glittering round the corner. For the flavour of the Young

Lady in Grey was present through it all, mixing with the flowers



and all the delight of it, a touch that made this second day

quite different from the first, an undertone of expectation,



anxiety, and something like regret that would not be ignored.

It was only late in the long evening that, quite abruptly, he



began to repent, vividly and decidedly, having fled these two

people. He was getting hungry, and that has a curious effect upon



the emotional colouring of our minds. The man was a sinister

brute, Hoopdriver saw in a flash of inspiration, and the



girl--she was in some serious trouble. And he who might have

helped her had taken his first impulse as decisive--and bolted.



This new view of it depressed him dreadfully. What might not be

happening to her now? He thought again of her tears. Surely it



was merely his duty, seeing the trouble afoot, to keep his eye

upon it.



He began riding fast to get quit of such selfreproaches. He found

himself in a tortuous tangle of roads, and as the dusk was coming



on, emerged, not at Petworth but at Easebourne, a mile from

Midhurst. "I'm getting hungry," said Mr. Hoopdriver, inquiring of



a gamekeeper in Easebourne village. "Midhurst a mile, and

Petworth five!--Thenks, I'll take Midhurst."



He came into Midhurst by the bridge at the watermill, and up the

North Street, and a little shop flourishing cheerfully, the



cheerful sign of a teapot, and exhibiting a brilliant array of

tobaccos, sweets, and children's toys in the window, struck his



fancy. A neat, bright-eyed little old lady made him welcome, and

he was presently supping sumptuously on sausages and tea, with a



visitors' book full of the most humorous and flattering remarks

about the little old lady, in verse and prose, propped up against



his teapot as he ate. Regular good some of the jokes were, and




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