He shook his head with a whimsical smile.
"Whatever else there is, our hearts can be riding together still."
"And when we're old folks? Isn't it only the young who can ride like that?"
She stood silent for a moment or two. Then she turned her eyes up to his in silence still, with the colour shining bright on her cheeks. She took his hand and kissed it. He knew the thought that his words had called into her mind. He had made the girl think that, when they were old, the world would not be; there would be young hearts still to ride, young hearts in whom their hearts should be carried still in the glorious gallop, young hearts which had drawn life from them.
They parted at the gate of Old Mill House. Grantley urged her to come up to his house in the evening and bring Jeremy with her, and laughed again when she said, "Bring Jeremy?" She was confused at the hint in his laughter, but she laughed too. Then growing grave, she went on:
"No, I won't come to-night. I won't see you again to-night. I want to realise it, to think it all over."
"Is it so complicated as that? You're looking very serious!"
She broke into a fresh laugh, a laugh of joyful confession.
"No, I don't want to think it over. I really want to live it over, to live it over alone, many, many times. To be alone with you again up on the downs there."
"Very well. Send Jeremy up. By now he must be dying for an argument; and he's probably not on speaking terms with Mrs. Mumple."