Page:Son of the wind.djvu/122

RV 110 fancying her for the qualities he deplored. She stood in the doorway, this time with leggings covering her slender ankles, her old brown skirt aswing to her light motion, youth on tiptoe, inquisitive and filled with the conviction that life is joy. She had ruthlessly turned her back on her mother and had approached the stranger confidently, as if from him she expected all pleasant happy things.

"Am I to ride the pretty one?" she asked.

"She's yours, but look out for her. She hates the side-saddle. Why do you use such an antiquated piece of furniture?"

"I always have; I've had it since I was a little girl. Besides, I like it better." She slipped nimbly into her place. "All right," she said.

He released the bridle, and immediately the chestnut was half-way across the loop of the drive. He watched a moment to make sure that she was equal to the mare's dancings and side-glidings; then turned, and looked over his shoulder at the woman standing in the dark end of the hall. "It's all right," he said; "the mare is perfectly safe. I broke her myself."

Mrs. Rader looked at him with a dumb anxiety. Her smile, assumed as if by main force, from the conviction that she must, intensified the unconscious appeal she fixed on him.