a while, little by little, the landscape lost patience, forgot its good
manners, and flew faster and faster than before. The road rushed
furiously beneath us, like a river in spate. Avenues of poplars flashed
past us, every tree of them on each side hissing and swishing angrily in
the draft we made. Motors going Rouen-ward seemed to be past as
quickly as motors that bore down on us. Hardly had I espied in the
landscape ahead a chateau or other object of interest before I was
craning my neck round for a final glimpse of it as it faded on the
backward horizon. An endless uphill road was breasted and crested in a
twinkling and transformed into a decline near the end of which our car
leaped straight across to the opposite ascent, and--"James!" again, and
again by degrees the laws of nature were reestablished, but again
by degrees revoked. I did not doubt that speed in itself was no danger;
but, when the road was about to make a sharp curve, why shouldn't
Pethel, just as a matter of form, slow down slightly, and sound a note or
two of the hooter? Suppose another car were--well, that was all right: the
road was clear; but at the next turning, when our car neither slackened
nor hooted and WAS for an instant full on the wrong side of the
road, I had within me a contraction which (at thought of what must have
been if--) lasted though all was well. Loath to betray fear, I hadn't turned
my face to Pethel. Eyes front! And how about that wagon ahead, huge
hay-wagon plodding with its back to us, seeming to occupy whole road?
Surely Pethel would slacken, hoot. No. Imagine a needle threaded with
one swift gesture from afar. Even so was it that we shot, between wagon
and road's-edge, through; whereon, confronting us within a few
yards--inches now, but we swerved--was a cart that incredibly we grazed
not as we rushed on, on. Now indeed I had turned my eyes on Pethel's
profile; and my eyes saw there that which stilled, with a greater emotion,
all fear and wonder in me.