Of course there was but one explanation of all this high-strung sensitiveness in a healthy, natural girl like Amy Lovejoy. She had made a mistake, and she was finding it out. In those autumn days in the little New England town, she had fallen captive to an idea, a theory of life, a certain poetical incentive and aspiration; for months she had fed her imagination upon this new experience, and suddenly Stephen Burns had come, and by his personal presence asserted a personal claim. She had been unconsciously ignoring the personal element in their relation, which had, in the months of separation, become very indefinite and unreal to her. She had told her father that Stephen's eyes were brown, and she found that they were blue; she had described him as being tall, and he had turned out to be rather below the medium height; she had forgotten what his voice was like, and it seemed oppressively rich and full.
"Better look out for your horse, Mr. Burns!" she said curtly. "He almost took a header a minute ago."
"Did he?" said Stephen. "I did not notice. This is the view you told me about, is it not?"
"Very likely," she returned, with affected indifference. "We Colorado people always do a good deal of bragging when we are in the East. We wear all our little descriptions and enthusiasms threadbare."
"There was nothing threadbare about your account," Stephen protested. "It was almost as vivid as the sight itself."
"We take things more naturally when we get back to them. Come, Jack, let's go faster!"
There was a level stretch of road before them, and the two young people were off with a rush. Stephen knew that the livery horse he rode could never keep up with them, even had his pride allowed him to follow uninvited. He had a dazed, hurt feeling, which was not more than half dispelled when, a few minutes later he came up with the truants, resting their horses at the top of a sudden dip in the road.
"Who got there first?" called a voice from one of the buckboards.
"Amy, of course. You don't suppose Cigarette would pass a lady!"
"Jacky wouldn't 'cause he couldn't!" Amy quoted. "Poor Cigarette," she added, descending to prose again, and tapping Cigarette's nose with the butt of her riding-crop. "How he did heave and pant when he caught up with us! And Sunbeam never turned a hair!"