d begin the bridge next day. Christopher said he'd see about it.

Patricia, much exasperated, said she should go home, and her companion
proposed to make the ponies jump the brook. She was too angry to
answer him, but she set her pony at it, and the pony, instead of
rising to the jump on command, very cautiously stepped into the stream
and splashed across. It is to be feared Christopher laughed. Patricia
cantered on, having seen, with much satisfaction, the other pony
behave in precisely the same way. But the end was not the same.
Christopher wheeled the pony round and tried again, tried eight times
and failed and succeeded at the ninth. It was characteristic of him
that he did not lose his temper, but had kept on with a sort of dull,
monotonous persistence that must have been very boring to the equine
mind.

Then he galloped after Patricia, and catching her up at the lodge
gates retailed his triumph gleefully. Perhaps he was a shade too
triumphant, for he was still in disgrace, and she had not spoken. At
all events by the time they had dismounted and were returning to the
house through the garden, she was in a fever of irritation, and
Christopher, blissfully ignorant of the fact, was just a tiny bit
inclined for private reasons of his own, to emphasise his own good
spirits. He never noticed the clenching and unclenching of her small
hands or saw the whiteness of her tense averted face, and he began
teasing her about her pony and her weight. "Nevil must buy you a brand
new one, up to your weight," he suggested, "you've broken Folly's
spirit evidently."

He was standing on the steps, just one step below her, and he looked
back laughing. On a sudden, with no word or sound of warning, she
turned and cut at him with her riding whip, her little form quivering
with the grip of the possessing demon. The lash caught him across the
face and he fell back against the wall gasping, with his hand up.
Luckily it was but a light whip and a girl's hand, but the sting of it
blanched him for an instant. The flaming colour died from Patricia's
face as suddenly as it had come, and with it the momentary fury. She
stood gazing at her companion a moment, and when he looked up half
terrified, half angry, she turned quickly and ran down a grass path,
dropping her whip as she went.

Christopher stood still, rubbing his smarting cheek gingerly,
wondering vaguely what he would say if it showed. He had heard from
others as well as from Patrici