Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/73

 At eleven o'clock she crossed the Common, still wearing the uncultured, fascinating green costume. There were horses in gigs and shays tied under the trees along Park Street, but one slim saddle horse was tied upon the Common itself. This she knew was Mr. Redcliffe's own mount. He, the senior partner, was of a more tempestuous nature than the suave Mr. Fox. He kept this fast horse always ready so that when it was necessary for him to direct the printing at the Cambridge press he might throw himself out of his office on School Street, run the two blocks to the Common, fall upon his nervous mount, and disappear in a cloud of dust up Park Street and so out upon the Mill Dam along Beacon Street. Lanice had often seen Mr. Redcliffe dash past on his fleet Zephyr. Captain Poggy would say, 'There goes Redcliffe on his way to the Press,' and if Mr. Fox were sitting beside Captain Poggy he'd make some amusing remark that would make haste seem ridiculous. Mr. Fox could make haste himself if there were need, but he made haste slowly.

Lanice stopped and chirruped to the strawberry roan, feeling a new, almost proprietorial interest in him. He had been rubbing his bits against his ankle, and without raising his head he pricked his ears and gazed at her with wild shining eyes gleaming through his long forelock.

On the ground floor of the old brick building occupied by Messrs. Redcliffe & Fox was a bookshop where Lanice had often made purchases. She knew that here and in the publishers' rooms above, the