ping into his own
father! "But you know what the Forsytes are," he said almost viciously.
"Oh! I forgot; you don't."
"What are they?"
"Oh! fearfully careful; not sportsmen a bit. Look at Uncle Soames!"
"I'd like to," said Holly.
Val resisted a desire to run his arm through hers. "Oh! no," he said,
"let's go out. You'll see him quite soon enough. What's your brother
like?"
Holly led the way on to the terrace and down to the lawn without
answering. How describe Jolly, who, ever since she remembered anything,
had been her lord, master, and ideal?
"Does he sit on you?" said Val shrewdly. "I shall be knowing him at
Oxford. Have you got any horses?"
Holly nodded. "Would you like to see the stables?"
"Rather!"
They passed under the oak tree, through a thin shrubbery, into the
stable-yard. There under a clock-tower lay a fluffy brown-and-white dog,
so old that he did not get up, but faintly waved the tail curled over
his back.
"That's Balthasar," said Holly; "he's so old--awfully old, nearly as old
as I am. Poor old boy! He's devoted to Dad."
"Balthasar! That's a rum name. He isn't purebred you know."
"No! but he's a darling," and she bent down to stroke the dog. Gentle
and supple, with dark covered head and slim browned neck and hands, she
seemed to Val strange and sweet, like a thing slipped between him and
all previous knowledge.
"When grandfather died," she said, "he wouldn't eat for two days. He saw
him die, you know."
"Was that old Uncle Jolyon? Mother always says he was a topper."
"He was," said Holly simply, and opened the stable door.
In a loose-box stood a silver roan of about fifteen hands, with a long
black tail and mane. "This is mine--Fairy."
"Ah!" said Val, "she's a jolly palfrey. But you ought to bang her tail.
She'd look much smarter." Then catching her wondering look, he thought
suddenly: 'I don't know--anything she likes!' And he took a long sniff
of the stable air. "Horses are ripping, aren't they? My Dad..." he
stopped.
"Yes?" said Holly.
An impulse to unbosom himself almost overcame him--but not quite. "Oh!
I don't know he's often gone a mucker over them. I'm jolly keen on them
too--riding and hunting. I like racing awfully, as well; I should like
to be a gentleman rider." And oblivious of the fact that he had but one
more day in town, with two engagements, he plumped out:
"I say, if I hire a gee to-morrow, will you come a ride in Richmond
Park?"
Holly cla
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