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 ‘You will go down slowly, sir, I suppose?’ she said with attempted unconcern.

D’Urberville looked round upon her, nipped his cigar with the tips of his large white centre-teeth, and allowed his lips to smile slowly of themselves.

‘Why, Tess’, he answered, after another whiff or two, ‘it isn’t a brave bouncing girl like you who asks that? Why, I always go down at full gallop. There’s nothing like it for raising your spirits.’

‘But perhaps you need not now?’

‘Ah,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘there are two to be reckoned with. It is not me alone. Tib has to be considered, and she has a very queer temper.’

‘Who?’

‘Why, this mare. I fancy she looked round at me in a very grim way just then. Didn’t you notice it?’

‘Don’t try to frighten me, sir,’ said Tess stiffly.

‘Well, I don’t. If any living man can manage this horse I can:—I won’t say any living man can do it—but if such has the power, I am he.’

‘Why do you have such a horse?’