gaging smile, "Thanks still more, Sabre. This is extraordinarily good
for the liver. Devilish graceful, aren't I? See, I'm only holding on
with one hand! Marvellous. No charge for this." And as the mare came to
rest and quivered at Sabre with her beautiful nostrils, "Ah, the music's
stopped. Delicious. How well your step suits mine!"

"Ass!" laughed a voice above them; and Sabre, who had almost forgotten
there was another horse when he had abruptly wakened and dismounted,
looked up at it.

The other horse was standing with complete and entirely unconcerned
statuesqueness on the low bank which bounded the lane on his other side.
Lady Tybar had taken it--or it had taken Lady Tybar--out of danger in a
sideways bound, and horse and rider remained precisely where the
sideways bound had taken them as if it were exactly where they had
intended to go all that morning, and as if they were now settled there
for all time as a living equestrian statue,--a singularly striking and
beautiful statue.

"We are up here," said Lady Tybar. Her voice had a very clear, fine
note. "We are rather beautiful up here, don't you think? Rather
darlings? No one takes the faintest notice of us; we might be off the
earth. But we don't mind a bit. Hullo, Derry and Toms, Marko is actually
taking off his hat to us. Bow, Derry."

Her horse, as if he perfectly understood, tossed his head, and she drew
attention to it with a deprecatory little gesture of her hand and then
said, "Shall we come down now? Is your dance quite finished, Tony? Are
you content, Marko? All right. We'll descend. This is us descending.
Lady Tybar, who is a superb horsewoman, descending a precipice on her
beautiful half-bred Derry and Toms, a winner at several shows."

Derry and Toms stepped down off the bank with complete assurance and
superb dignity. With equal precision, moving his feet as though there
were marked for them certain exact spots which he covered with infinite
lightness and exactitude, he turned about and stood beside his partner
in exquisite and immobile pose.

IV

Thus the two riders faced Sabre, smiling upon him. He stood holding his
bicycle immediately in front of them. The mare continued to quiver her
beautiful nostrils at him; every now and then she blew a little agitated
puff through them, causing them to expand and reveal yet more
exquisitely their glorious softness and delicacy.

Sabre thought that the riders, with their horses, made the most
strik