n came
another fence, and quickly another, and she lost feelings of shame and
pity in the exultation of flying over them. A minute later the fox went
to earth within a few hundred yards of the leading hound, and she was
glad. She had been in at deaths before--horrid! But it had been a lovely
gallop. And, breathless, smiling rapturously, she wondered whether she
could mop her face before the field came up, without that young man
noticing.

She could see him talking to her father, and taking out a wisp of a
handkerchief that smelled of cyclamen, she had a good scrub round. When
she rode up, the young man raised his hat, and looking full at her
said: "You did go!" His voice, rather high-pitched, had in it a spice
of pleasant laziness. Gyp made him an ironical little bow, and murmured:
"My new horse, you mean." He broke again into that irrepressible smile,
but, all the same, she knew that he admired her. And she kept thinking:
'Where HAVE I seen someone like him?'

They had two more runs, but nothing like that first gallop. Nor did she
again see the young man, whose name--it seemed--was Summerhay, son of a
certain Lady Summerhay at Widrington, ten miles from Mildenham.

All that long, silent jog home with Winton in fading daylight, she felt
very happy--saturated with air and elation. The trees and fields, the
hay-stacks, gates, and ponds beside the lanes grew dim; lights came up
in the cottage windows; the air smelled sweet of wood smoke. And, for
the first time all day, she thought of Fiorsen, thought of him almost
longingly. If he could be there in the cosy old drawing-room, to play to
her while she lay back--drowsing, dreaming by the fire in the scent of
burning cedar logs--the Mozart minuet, or that little heart-catching
tune of Poise, played the first time she heard him, or a dozen other of
the things he played unaccompanied! That would be the most lovely
ending to this lovely day. Just the glow and warmth wanting, to make all
perfect--the glow and warmth of music and adoration!

And touching the mare with her heel, she sighed. To indulge fancies
about music and Fiorsen was safe here, far away from him; she even
thought she would not mind if he were to behave again as he had under
the birch-trees in the rain at Wiesbaden. It was so good to be adored.
Her old mare, ridden now six years, began the series of contented
snuffles that signified she smelt home. Here was the last turn, and the
loom of the short beech-tree