Next evening it was observed in Oriel Common Room that Dormer was unusually quiet. He withdrew earlier even than his wont, and while Newman and Hurrell Froude, going up their staircase, were commenting on the absence of light from his windows on the other side of the quadrangle, he was sitting by the fire, Tristram's read and re-read letter on his knee, and the half-bitter postscript of it running in his head, "Henceforward your fanatical ideas will easily carry the day with me. I shall never marry now." What he had dreamed of had come to pass—and his heart within him was desolate with pity.
CHAPTER XIV
(1)
Morning on the Downs, with the clean, the thrilling wind, intoxicating even in autumn, the air that gives the sensation of a draught of the barest and intensest life, the air of the world's morning. Add to this youth, a good horse beneath you, and by your side, never henceforth to leave it, that one person who to you sums up the spirit of all these other things. What can Heaven give more?
So, flashingly, thought Horatia, as she and Armand finished their gallop, and her green veil, outstreaming from her tall hat, fell to a position a little more composed. Laughing, a trifle breathless, "O, I should like to ride like this for ever!" she exclaimed, as the horses fell to a walk. "It was glorious!"
Armand de la Roche-Guyon, sitting his big brown mare with the ease of the born rider—a lover of whom any girl might be proud—bent on her a long and smiling look. "We shall often ride in Brittany," he said. "If the peasants know mythology—which I doubt—they will take you for Diane chasseresse."
Moving on, they came to the edge of the Downs, the great wind still blowing steadily upon them.
"There is Compton Regis, and there is Compton Parva," observed Horatia, pointing with her whip. "Do they not seem low from here? And—do you see?—that looks like Papa and Robin, deserting us and making off home." For the Rector, having ridden with the affianced couple, for propriety's sake, as far as the Downs, had refused to come any further. The protestations which his action had drawn forth had been singularly lacking in fervour.
"I think," went on Horatia, "that before we have another gallop, you had better tighten my girth for me, if you will.... But what are you looking at, down there?"
"I was trying to distinguish the road on which you first came to me, like an angel of mercy," said the young man, swinging off. "And the spot where Mr. Hungerford's horse so inexplicably cast a shoe! By the way," he went on, pulling at the girth, "speaking of your cousin, ma toute belle, reminds me that I have long wanted to ask you——"