"I do; if he'd give you the chance," said Polly.
Finetta drew her foot away.
"I'll button the other myself," she said, passionately. But when her sister had gone she sat with the other boot unbuttoned, and kept the groom and the horses waiting for a good half-hour; and when she did go down and mount and ride off, her handsome face was clouded and thoughtful.
But at the sight of the green park and the people, she chased the melancholy brooding out of her dark eyes, and touching the magnificent horse with her golden spur, sent him into the row in her well-known style.
"If he were only here," she thought, and a sigh came to her lips. "Somehow I feel tired and bored without him, and lost if he's away for a day or two. Going to marry Lady Eleanor, is he?"
Almost before the muttered words had left her lips her eyes fell upon a stalwart figure standing against the rails, and the color flew to her face as she brought the horse up beside him.
It was Yorke—Yorke leaning against the rail, with his usually careless face grave and thoughtful, his eyes absent and staring vacantly at the ground, and yet with a strange look in them, which she, with a woman's quickness, noticed in an instant.
"Yorke," she said, bending down.
He started, and looked up, and her name came to his lips, but without the friendly smile which usually accompanied it.
"Why, when did you come back?" she asked, her face, her eyes all alight with life and happiness.