"You don't like hunting?"
"I hate anything to do with horses," answered Lefferts, plaintively. "You must admit they are particularly unintelligent animals. If they weren't, of course they wouldn't let us bully them and ride them about, when they could do anything they wanted with us. No, I only do it because she," he nodded toward Miss Falkener, "makes me."
Cora, looking very handsome, laughed.
"He's a poet," she said.
"Is that why he has to hunt?" asked Crane, and he wondered if poetry had anything to do with the excellence of the young man's coat and boots.
"Yes, poets have to be athletic nowadays. It's the fashion, and a very good one, too."
"There are other forms of athletics I don't hate nearly as much," Lefferts went on to Crane, "swimming, for instance, and sailing, and even walking isn't so bad. It doesn't need so much preparation, and getting up early in the morning, and all that sort of thing."
"Fortunately, I know what's best for him," said Cora.
"She makes me think she does," said the poet, still plaintively.
Crane wanted to ask Cora where and how she had acquired this rather agreeable responsibility, but he had no opportunity before they were off.