“Take him by the snaffle, not the curb,” she said in her low, clear voice.
The lady had her reins bunched up after the manner of ladies, but eventually got hold of the snaffle ones. Esmeralda held on with what looked like perfect ease, though the horse tried to rear all it knew, until the rider had regained control; then she let go the bridle, and was about to pass under the rail again, when the gentleman rode up to her, and taking off his hat, said:
“Thank you! Thank you very much!”
His dark face was slightly flushed, and his eyes, as they rested on Esmeralda’s, seemed to glow as she had never seen any other man’s.
“That’s all right,” she said in her calm way.
“It was not only kind—it was exceedingly brave of you,” he went on in a low voice. “He might have come down upon you!”
Esmeralda looked at the horse, not contemptuously but contemplatively.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I should have been too quick for him. I should have stepped aside.”
He seemed struck by her coolness, and the absence of any embarrassment on her part, and, with his hat still in his hand, leaned forward in his saddle and looked at her fixedly, after the manner of men when they feel that they ought to say something and do not know what.
The lady had not yet spoken, but had sat erect in her saddle, looking steadily, with a kind of subdued hauteur on her beautiful face. At this juncture, as Esmeralda and the gentleman gazed at each other, the lady spoke.