Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/96

 gave it back. On both sides was a frank curiosity discreetly veiled, but the honors, if honors there were in the matter, were with the occupants of the saddle. Somehow that seemed so clearly to have been the place for generations of these lean young women with their rigidity of line, their large noses, their cool appraising air of which they were wholly unconscious.

Who are they? was their reaction upon Mary Lawrence.

Who is she? was her reaction upon these horse-*women.

"A couple of my cousins." The young man carelessly answered a question that Mary was too proud to ask.

IV

Mary's riding had been confined to a few lessons shared with Milly at the Brompton School of Equitation, and Milly was urged to make a third on the morrow. Mrs. Wren felt it to be the due of the proprieties that she should do so, but Milly herself, apart from the fact that she was shy of appearing in the Row, was quite convinced that it would not be the act of "a sport" to overlook the ancient maxim, "Two are company, three a crowd." Therefore the invitation was declined. And this discreet action on the part of Milly gave Fate the opportunity for which it had seemed to be looking for some little time past.

It was about twenty minutes to eleven in the forenoon of a perfect first of June that Jack Dinneford rode up gayly to the flat in Broad Place, leading a horse very likely-looking, but warranted quiet. It was a