About this story
You follow her home on impulse, then invent a reason to question her father just to learn who she is. Mr Sherwin catches the lie, corners you in his shop, and offers to discuss a secret marriage upstairs — if you can keep it from your own family.
How it opens
Your family breakfast ended beneath portraits that measured every guest by ancestry.
RalphBasil, our father has planned your life so thoroughly that you need not attend it.
Your elder brother tossed aside an invitation while Clara watched you refuse another.
ClaraWalk somewhere without a family name following two paces behind.
Choose
I will ride until the city offers an answer.
Does this conveyance pass any place worth seeing?
Take me as far west as your route allows.