And for a moment she almost relented, only to discover that she could not if she had wished. She did not know always what she meant herself.
“I’ll tell you,” she said, hoping that this, somehow, might lead her into the truth, for herself, if not for him, but it did not, “you are a little nervous, you will get used to it—you will even grow to like it. Be patient. You will learn soon enough that there is nothing in the world so agreeable as climbing, changing.”
“Well,” he said, trying to read her, “and then?”
“That’s all, you will regret the stables in the end—that’s all.” Her nostrils quivered. A light came into her eyes, a desire to defy, to be defied.
Then on this last night he had done something terrible, he had made a blunder. There had been a party. The guests, a lot of them, were mostly drunk, or touched with drink. And he, too, had too much. He remembered having thrown his arms about a tall woman, gowned in black with loose shoulder straps, dragging her through a dance. He had even sung a bit of a song, madly, wildly, horribly. And suddenly he had been brought up sharp by the fact that no one thought his behaviour strange, that no one thought him presumptuous. Freda’s mother had not even moved or dropped the kitten from her lap where it sat, its loud resolute purr shaking the satin of her gown.
And he felt that Freda had got him where she wanted him, between two rungs. Going directly up to her, he said:
“You are ridiculous!” and twirled his moustache, spitting into the garden.
And he knew nothing about what happened until he found himself in the shrubbery, crawling toward the corral, through the dusk and the dampness of the leaves, carrying his cane, making sure of his hat, looking up at the stars.
Now he knew why he had come. He was with his horses again. His eyes, pressed against the bars, stared in. The black stallion in the lead had been his special pet, a rough animal, but kindly, knowing. And here they were once more, tearing up the grass, galloping about in the night like a ball-room full of real people, people who wanted to do things, who did what they wanted to do.
He began to crawl through the bars, slowly, deftly, and when half way through he paused, thinking.