"I'd far sooner give you the horse," he said, "for, after all, I should be returning you your own. I want to have a shot for the next Derby, Miss Armitage," he went on, "and it isn't only because I have a sort of a bet with you. That's a motive with me, certainly, but it isn't all. However, I can find another horse, and really the money is of no importance to me. We are rivals, you and I, both eager to win, but both wanting to play the game fairly. You shall have Castor and I will look out for myself; is that a bargain?"
"Not unless I can pay you the thousand pounds," she retorted. "But if I can succeed in doing that, and without undue delay, Castor shall be mine again, and our rivalry can begin as soon as ever you like." She laughed derisively. "If it does, I don't think there'll be much chance for you, Mr. Clithero."
He shrugged his shoulders, seeing no use in argument. He did not want to accept Rada's thousand pounds, but he had sense to see that it was quite useless, as matters stood, to suggest any other solution of the difficulty.
"It shall be just as you please, Miss Armitage," he said with an effort to appear cheerful. "I'm going to do my best to win the Derby, but it won't be with Castor."
She rose from the bench upon which she had been sitting and once more extended her cold hand. "Thank you," she said. "There's nothing more to be settled for the present between us. You shall have your money and I my horse. That's decided."
Mostyn held her hand in his for a moment, despite her effort to withdraw it. He looked straight into her eyes. "I wonder," he said, "why we always meet to quarrel? I should like to be on better terms with you, Miss Armitage. We can be rivals and yet good friends, can't we? I am sorry that this misunderstanding should have happened, but really I'm not to blame."
He released the girl's hand, which fell to her side. Rada tapped the ground petulantly with her foot. Truth to tell, she was a little ashamed of herself. Mostyn may not have been so much to blame, after all; her father had a plausible tongue. But she was in a mood when to admit herself in the wrong would have been an impossibility for her. Had Mostyn been wise he would have left her alone; reflection and repentance would have come in due course. As it was, she hated him at that moment even for his offer to return Castor to her. How dared he even think that she would consent to such a thing?
She had no dislike for Mostyn really. In her heart she admired his clean, well-cut features, his stalwart, manly frame. More than once she had mentally compared him with other men of her acquaintance, especially with Jack Treves, and the comparison had been all in Mostyn's favour. Perhaps it was because she did not understand her own feelings, because she was too contradictory to yield to them, that she had always instinctively adopted an aggressive attitude when with Mostyn. In a sense it was against herself that she was fighting. How could she, who had been brought up almost from babyhood to the love of sport, have any esteem for such a greenhorn as this otherwise good-looking and good-tempered boy? It was that feeling that had impelled her to make fun of him, and which had caused her to resent bitterly what she had regarded as an attempt on his part to get the better of her.
A peculiar pugnacity had been aroused within her; perhaps the wild and wayward little creature was moved, without knowing it, by the natural strife between sex and sex. She felt instinctively the desire of the man to subdue and win her, and all her senses were accordingly in revolt.
"I suppose you think I'm a little minx, a sort of wild cat," she said, not looking at him but at the ground. "It's been my fault that we've quarrelled, and now you are reproaching me for it."