As I now went looking up and down the street for the driver who was
usually on the watch for me about eleven o'clock on a fair day of
the races, I turned over in my mind the several accidents which are
employed in novels to bring young people to a realising sense of
their feelings toward each other, and wondered which of them I might
most safely invoke. I was not anxious to have Kendricks and Miss
Gage lovers; it would be altogether simpler for us if they were not;
but if they were, the sooner they knew it and we knew it the better.
I thought of a carriage accident, in which he should seize her and
leap with her from the flying vehicle, while the horses plunged
madly on, but I did not know what in this case would become of Mrs.
March and me. Besides, I could think of nothing that would frighten
our driver's horses, and I dismissed the fleeting notion of getting
any others because Mrs. March liked their being so safe, and she
had, besides, interested herself particularly in the driver, who had
a family and counted upon our custom. The poor fellow came in sight
presently, and smilingly made the usual arrangement with me, and an
hour later he delivered us all sound in wind and limb at the
racecourse.

I watched in vain for signs of uncommon tenderness in the two young
people. If anything they were rather stiff and distant with each
other, and I asked myself whether this might not be from an access
of consciousness. Kendricks was particularly devoted to Mrs. March,
who, in the airy detachment with which she responded to his
attentions, gave me the impression that she had absolutely dismissed
her suspicions of the night before, or else had heartlessly
abandoned the affair to me altogether. If she had really done this,
then I saw no way out of it for me but by an accident which should
reveal them to each other. Perhaps some one might insult Miss Gage-