Part 17 (1/2)
”Aren't you always boasting of it? But you are quite right to go away.”
”I am not going for a week,” he put in quickly. ”There will be time for two more rides.”
She made no reply, and they paced on. Suddenly the trees began to thin before them, and a splendid wave of colour swept across an open glade in full sunlight.
”Marvellous!” cried Constance. ”Oh, stop a moment!”
They pulled up on the brink of a sea of blue. All around them the bluebells lay glowing in the suns.h.i.+ne. The colour and sparkle of them was a physical delight; and with occasional lingering tufts of primroses among them and the young oak scrub pus.h.i.+ng up through the blue in every shade of gold and bronze, they made an enchanted garden of the glade.
Falloden dismounted, tied up his horse, and gathered a bunch for his companion.
”I don't know--ought we?” she said regretfully. ”They are not so beautiful when they are torn away. And in a week they will be gone--withered!”
She stooped over them, caressing them, as, taking a strap from the pocket of his own saddle, he tied the flowers to her pommel.
He looked up impetuously.
”Only to spring again!--in this same wood--in other woods--for us to see. Do you ever think how full the world is of sheer pleasure--small and great?” And his eyes told her plainly what his pleasure was at that moment.
Something jarred. She drew herself away, though with fluttering pulses.
Falloden, with a strong effort, checked the tide of impulse in himself.
He mounted again, and suggested a gallop, through a long stretch of green road on the further side of the glade. They let their horses go, and the flying hoof-beats woke the very heart of the wood.
”That was good!” cried Falloden, as they pulled up, drawing in deep draughts of the summer wind. Then he looked at her admiringly.
”How well you hold yourself! You are a perfect rider!”
Against her will Constance sparkled under his praise. Then they turned their horses towards the keeper's cottage, and the sun fell lower in the west.
”Mr. Falloden,” said Constance presently, ”I want you to promise me something.”
”Ask me,” he said eagerly.
”I want you to give up ragging Otto Radowitz!”
His countenance changed.
”Who has been talking to you?”
”That doesn't matter. It is unworthy of you. Give it up.”
Falloden laughed with good humour.
”I a.s.sure you it does him a world of good!”
She argued hotly; astonished, in her young inexperience, that his will could so soon rea.s.sert itself against hers; sharply offended, indeed, that after she had given him the boon of this rendezvous, he could hesitate for a moment as to the boon she asked in return--had humbled herself to ask. For had she not often vowed to herself that she would never, never ask the smallest favour of him; while on her side a diet of refusals and rebuffs was the only means to keep him in check?
But that diet was now gaily administered to herself.