But their
words were lost amid the rush of water. However, the little girls and the
page took a proper course in crouching beside a thick hedge, though the
betrothed couple wildly continued on their way.
Frederic, the more reasonable of the two, certainly had sense enough to
say: "This isn't prudent on our part. Let us stop like the others, I beg
you."
But from Rose, all excitement, transported by her blissful fever, and
insensible, so it seemed, to the pelting of the rain, he only drew this
answer: "Pooh! what does it matter, now that we are soaking? It is by
stopping that we might do ourselves harm. Let us make haste, all haste.
In three minutes we shall be at home and able to make fine sport of those
laggards when they arrive in another quarter of an hour."
They had just crossed the Yeuse bridge, and they swept on side by side,
although the road was far from easy, being a continual ascent for a
thousand yards or so between rows of lofty poplars.
"I assure you that we are doing wrong," the young man repeated. "They
will blame me, and they will be right."
"Oh! well," cried she, "I'm amusing myself. This bicycle bath is quite
funny.
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