She tells me all her thoughts in
her flanks and they Marconi up my nervous and receptive legs. I must
write and tell the _Searchlight_ that. Perhaps they'll think better of
me."--The mare, feeling his hand, began to dance coquettishly. "You'll
come up and see us often, now you know we're back, won't you? Nona likes
seeing you, don't you, Nona?" And again he looked from Nona to Sabre and
back at Nona again with that look of mocking drollery.

"Oh, you're all right, Marko," Nona agreed, "when you're not too
matter-of-fact. Yes, do come up. There's always a harsh word and a blow
for you at Northrepps."

The mare steadied again. She stretched out her neck towards Sabre and
quivered her nostrils at him, sensing him. He put up a hand to stroke
her beautiful muzzle and she threw up her head violently and swerved
sharply around.

Not in the least discomposed, Lord Tybar, his body in perfect rhythm
with her curvettings, laughed at Sabre over his shoulder. "She thinks
you're up to something, Sabre. She thinks you've got designs on us.
Marvellous how I know! Whisper and I shall hear, loved one. You'll hurt
yourself in a minute."

The light in his smiling eyes was surely a mocking light. "Thinks you're
up to something! Thinks you've got designs on us!"

The mare was wheedled round again to her former position; against her
will, but somehow as the natural result of her dancing. Marvellous how
he directed her caprices into his own intentions and against her own.
But Lord Tybar was now looking away behind him to where the adjoining
meadow sloped far away and steeply to a copse. In the hollow only the
tops of the trees could be seen. His eyes were screwed up in distant
vision. He said, "Dash it, there's that old blighter Sooper. He's been
avoiding me. Now I've got him. Nona, you won't mind getting back alone?
I must speak to Sooper. I'm going to have his blood over that fodder
business. Blood! My word! Good!"

He twisted the mare in a wonderfully quick and dexterous movement.
"Good-by, Sabre. You don't mind, Nona?" And he flashed back a glance. He
lifted the mare over the low bank with a superbly easy motion. He turned
to wave his hand as she landed nimbly in the meadow, and he cantered
away, image of grace, poetry of movement. Fortune's favourite!

The two left watched him. At the brow of the meadow he turned again in
his saddle and waved again jauntily. They waved reply. He was over the
brow. Out of sight.

VII

The fea