"It might break your neck. It would certainly bring her down and break her knees."
"Oh!" Ruth shivered. "Do you mean that it would actually break them?" she asked in her ignorance.
He laughed. "Well, that's possible; but I meant the skin of the knee."
"That would heal, surely?"
He laughed again. "A horse is like a woman—" he began, but checked himself of a sudden. She waited for him to continue, and he went on, "It knocks everything off the price, you see. Some won't own a horse that has once been down; and any knowledgeable man can tell, at a glance. It is the first thing he looks for."
She considered for a moment. "But if the mark had been a scratch only— and the scratch had healed—might she not be as good a horse as ever?"
"It would damage her price, none the less."
"But you are not a horse-dealer. Would you value a horse by its selling price?"
He laughed. "I am afraid," he owned, "that I should be ruled by other men's opinions. Your connoisseur does not collect chipped chinaware. . . . There's the chance, too, that the mare, having once fallen, will throw herself again by the same trick."
"And women are like horses," thought Ruth as they rode on. The night was paling about them, and she watched the rolling champaign as little by little it took shape, emerging from the morning mist and passing from monochrome into faint colours: for albeit the upper sky was clear as ever, mist filled the hollows of the hills and rolled up their sides like a smoke.