Part 54

She touched her mare and galloped forward, and he followed through the yellow sunshine, attendant always on her caprice, ready for any sudden whim. So when she wheeled to the left and lifted her mare over a snake-fence, he was ready to follow; and together they tore away across a pasture, up a hill all purple with plumy bunch-grass, and forward to the edge of a gravel-pit, where she whirled her mare about, drew bridle, and flung up a warning hand just in time. His escape was narrower; his horse's hind hoofs loosened a section of undermined sod; the animal stumbled, sank back, strained with every muscle, and dragged himself desperately forward; while behind him the entire edge of the pit gave way, crashing and clattering into the depths below.

They were both rather white when they faced each other.

"Don't take such a risk again," he said, harshly.

"I won't," she answered, with dry lips; but she was not thinking of herself. Suddenly she became very humble, guiding her mare alongside of his horse, and in a low voice asked him to pardon her folly.

And, not thinking of himself, he scored her for the risk she had taken, alternately reproaching, arguing, bullying, pleading, after the fashion of men. And, still shaken by the peril she had so wilfully sought, he asked her not to do it again, for his sake--an informal request that she accepted with equal informality and a slow droop of her head.

Never had she received such a thorough, such a satisfying scolding. There was not one word too much--every phrase refreshed her, every arbitrary intonation sang in her ears like music. And so far not one selfish note had been struck.

She listened, eyes downcast, face delicately flushed--listened until it pleased him to make an end, which he did with amazing lack of skill:

"What do you suppose life would hold for me with you at the bottom of that gravel-pit?"

The selfish note rang out, unmistakable, imperative--the clearest, sweetest note of all to her. But the question was no question and required no answer. Besides, he had said enough--just enough.

"Let us ride home," she said, realizing that they were on dangerous ground again--dangerous as the gravel-hill.

And a few moments later she caught a look in his face that disconcerted and stampeded her. "It was partly your own fault, Mr. Burleson. Why does not your friend take away the mare he has bought and paid for?"

"Partly--my--fault!" he repeated, wrathfully.

"Can you not let a woman have that much consolation?" she said, lifting her gray eyes to his with a little laugh. "Do you insist on being the only and perfect embodiment of omniscience?"

He said, rather sulkily, that he didn't think he was omniscient, and she pretended to doubt it, until the badinage left him half vexed, half laughing, but on perfectly safe ground once more.

Indeed, they were already riding over the village bridge, and he said: "I want to stop and see Santry's child for a moment. Will you wait?"

"Yes," she said.

So he dismounted and entered the weather-battered abode of Santry; and she looked after him with an expression on her face that he had never surprised there.

Meanwhile, along the gray village thoroughfare the good folk peeped out at her where she sat her mare, unconscious, deep in maiden meditation.

She had done much for her people; she was doing much. Fiction might add that they adored her, worshipped her very footprints!--echoes all of ancient legends of a grateful tenantry that the New World believes in but never saw.

After a little while Burleson emerged from Santry's house, gravely returning the effusive adieus of the family.

"You are perfectly welcome," he said, annoyed; "it is a pleasure to be able to do anything for children."

And as he mounted he said to Miss Elliott, "I've fixed it, I think."

"Fixed her hip?"

"No; arranged for her to go to New York. They do that sort of thing there. I see no reason why the child should not walk."

"Oh, do you think so?" she exclaimed, softly. "You make me very happy, Mr. Burleson."

He looked her full in the face for just the space of a second.

"And you make me happy," he said.

She laughed, apparently serene and self-possessed, and turned up the hill, he following a fraction of a length behind.