Then suddenly a friendly starting push drove
her a yard or two, and she glided past the level on to the first
imperceptible slope of the track. By some hazard her two planks were
exactly parallel, as they ought to be, and she glided forward
miraculously. And people heard her say:
"How lovely!"
And then people heard her say:
"Oh!... Oh!"
For her pace was increasing. And she dared not strike her pole into the
ground. She had, in fact, no control whatever over those two planks to
which her feet were strapped. She might have been Mazeppa and they
mustangs. She could not even fall. So she fled down the preliminary
straight of the track, and ecstatic spectators cried: "Look how
_well_ Mrs Machin is doing!"
Mrs Machin would have given all her furs to be anywhere off those
planks. On the adjacent fields of glittering snow the Captain had been
giving his adored Countess a lesson in the use of skis; and they stood
together, the Countess somewhat insecure, by the side of the track at
its first curve.
Nellie, dumb with excitement and amazement, swept towards them.
"Look out!" cried the Captain.
In vain! He himself might perhaps have escaped, but he could not abandon
his Countess in the moment of peril, and the Countess could only move
after much thought and many efforts, being scarce more advanced than
Nellie.
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