Finally he told her to ride ahead—that way he could keep his eye on her.

“Why can’t we ride side by side?” Marya asked, irritated.

“It isn’t done,” Gregory said, “on roads like these.”

The slight edge of reproof in his voice was Marya’s first intimation that the bicycle ride, for all its romantic promise, might be an error.

Suddenly there were surprises, unanticipated discomforts. The wind was far stronger than it had been in town—blowing across open corn and wheat fields, sweeping along the highway itself. Marya’s hair whipped frantically about her head, she regretted not having brought along a scarf. When the sun disappeared for long minutes at a time she was cold and shivering; when it reappeared she was hot within seconds—dressed too warmly, evidently, in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Gregory appeared to be dressed sensibly; the very equanimity of his temper shamed her.

Sunshine . . . wind . . . the smell of dried grasses . . . the smell of cultivated fields . . . the hypnotic movement of the pavement . . . the potholes, creases, ruts, rivulets . . . the ceaseless alterations in the road’s shoulders, now muddy, now sandy, now alarmingly eroded. . . . Marya’s shoulders and knees had begun to ache by late morning and she found herself wondering (childishly, nervously) how long they had to go before the first stop. Gregory had told her the mileage, he’d told her the name of the little town, but she couldn’t remember and didn’t want to ask. She was conscious of him watching her from behind, noting the arhythmic movement of her feet on the pedals, the occasional swerve in her steering. Her initial rush of energy and confidence had gradually drained away; she wondered if Gregory had known this would happen, if he had suggested the excursion merely to humiliate her.

But that was absurd. He was her closest friend, after all.

Still, this meant that Marya was straining herself, pushing herself. By noon she’d already pushed far beyond the perimeters of their other rides—she was reminded of the long bicycle rides into Innisfail, years ago—on her American-style bicycle with the balloon tires and the rusted wire basket. If her knees and shoulders ached that was a good thing; if the calves of her legs pulled, throbbed, that simply meant—didn’t it?—that the muscles were being exercised. And if her mind wandered along unproductive lines, if she felt now and then little jabs of panicked apprehension, it was simply the case, as Gregory had said, that she was to blame—the sport wasn’t monotonous, surely.

She wondered with a thrill of anticipation how many miles she was capable of covering, how many hours she could keep it up. Gregory complained that his own years of serious bicycling were past—he smoked too much, his wind was short. (He was nearly thirty, and rapidly aging, as he liked to joke, running his hand through his pale filmy thinning hair.)