When I paid her for them I felt as though, for the first time in my life,
I had let myself go.
Oddly enough, in this uneasy feeling of gaiety and abandon, a curious
sensation of exhilaration persisted.
We had quite a merry little contretemps when I tried to light my
cigarette and the match went out, and then _she_ struck another match,
and we both laughed, and _that_ match was extinguished by her breath.
Instantly I quoted: "'Her breath was like the new-mown hay--'"
"Mr. Smith!" she said, flushing slightly.
"'Her eyes,' I quoted, 'were like the stars at even!'"
"You don't mean _my_ eyes, do you?"
I took a puff at my unlighted cigarette. It also smelled like recently
mown hay. I felt that I was slipping my cables and heading toward an
unknown and tempestuous sea.
"What time are you free, Mildred?" I asked, scarcely recognising my own
voice in such reckless apropos.
She shyly informed me.
I struck a match, relighted my cigarette, and took one puff. That was
sufficient: I was adrift. I realised it, trembled internally, took
another puff.
"If," said I carelessly, "on your way home you should chance to stroll
along the path beyond the path that leads to the path which--"
I paused, checked by her bewildered eyes.
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