Part 2 (1/2)
”We shall never catch them, shall we? It's not the least use going on, is it?”
”Oh, I don't know. I know the country; if you'd let me pilot you--”
”Harry Belfield was going to pilot me, but--well, I told him not to wait for me, and he didn't. You were at the meeting last night, weren't you?
You're Mr. Hayes, aren't you? What did you think of the speeches?”
”Really, you know, if we're to have a chance of seeing any more of the--” It was not the moment to discuss political speeches, however excellent.
”I don't want to see any more of it. I'll go home; I'll risk it.”
”Risk what?” he asked. There seemed no risk in going home; and there was, by now, small profit in going on.
She did not answer his question. ”I think hunting's the most wretched amus.e.m.e.nt I've ever tried!” she broke out. ”The pony's lame--yes, he is; I've torn my habit” (she exhibited a sore rent); ”I've scratched my face” (her finger indicated the wound); ”and here I am! All I hope is that they won't catch that poor fox. How far do you think it is to Nutley?”
”Oh, about three miles, I should think. You could strike the road half a mile from here.”
”I'm sure the pony's lame. I shall go back.”
”Would you like me to come with you?”
During their talk her eyes had wavered between indignation and piteousness--the one at the so-called sport of hunting, the other for her own woes. At Andy's question a gleam of welcome flashed into them, followed in an instant by a curious sort of veiling of all expression.
She made a pathetic little figure, with her habit sorely rent and a nasty red scratch across her forehead. The pony lame too--if he were lame! Andy hit on the idea that it was a question whether he were lame enough to swear by: that was what she was going to risk--in a case to be tried before some tribunal to which she was amenable.
”But don't you want to go on?” she asked. ”You're enjoying it, aren't you?” The question carried no rebuke; it recognized as legitimate the widest differences of taste.
”I haven't the least chance of catching up with them. I may as well come back with you.”
The curious expression--or rather eclipse of expression--was still in her eyes, a purely negative defensiveness that seemed as though it could spring only from an instinctive resolve to show nothing of her feelings.
The eyes were a dark blue; but with Vivien's eyes colour never counted for much, nor their shape, nor what one would roughly call their beauty, were it more or less. Their meaning--that was what they set a man asking after.
”It really would be very kind of you,” she said.
Andy mounted her on the suppositiously lame pony--her weight wouldn't hurt him much, anyhow--and they set out at a walk towards the highroad which led to Nutley and thence, half a mile farther on, to Meriton.
She was silent till they reached the road. Then she asked abruptly, ”Are you ever afraid?”
”Well, you see,” said Andy, with a laugh, ”I never know whether I'm afraid or only excited--in fighting, I mean. Otherwise I don't fancy I'm either often.”
”Well, you're big,” she observed. ”I'm afraid of pretty nearly everything--horses, dogs, motor-cars--and I'm pa.s.sionately afraid of hunting.”
”You're not big, you see,” said Andy consolingly. Indeed her hand on the reins looked almost ridiculously small.
”I've got to learn not to be afraid of things. My father's teaching me.
You know who I am, don't you?”
”Oh yes; why, I remember you years ago! Is that why you're out hunting?”
”Yes.”