“Will you do something if I ask you?” she said suddenly.
“Certainly, if it is anything within my power.”
“I want you to take me for a ride—now, this morning. Will you?”
“With pleasure,” he answered, brightening up—all prudent resolves scattered to the winds.
“I think it will do me good. Besides—I want to talk to you. Now, I’ll go and get ready. But mind—don’t let’s have any of the others, or it will be no use. Make some excuse about there being no horses or something.”
And she started off indoors, while he went round to see about getting the horses up from the large paddock, wherein a certain supply of the noble animal was always kept for home use.
Violet was not much of a rider; in fact, she was rather timid in the saddle. But she had a good seat for all show purposes, and being one of those girls who do everything gracefully, she looked as well on horseback as anywhere else.
In the eyes of her present escort, this lovely sunshiny morning, she looked more than bewitching; which being so, it is not surprising that all his strongly formed and salutary resolutions should rapidly ooze out at his finger-ends. For he had half-unconsciously formed many resolutions, not the least of which was that he would think no more of Violet Avory—at any rate, except as a friend.
Though his strong, self-contained nature had rendered him an easy prey to her wiles—easier because so thorough, once he had succumbed—yet it supplied a wholesome counterbalance. Which counterbalance lay in an unswerving sense of self-respect.
Try as she would, Violet had not been able to conceal altogether her partiality for Sellon. All her sage precepts to the latter notwithstanding, she had more than once allowed her prudence to lull. The sharp precocity of the children had discovered their secret in no time, and, disliking her as they did, they had, we may be sure, been at no pains to hold their prying, chattering little tongues. Then the whole thing had become common property to all around.