“Oh, botheration take it! Is my hair down again? It always comes down if I trot fast,” bewailed Francie, putting up her hands to her dishevelled hair, that sparkled like gold in the sun.
“Do you know, the first time I ever saw you, your hair had come down out riding,” said Christopher, looking at her as he held her rein, and not giving a thought to the intimate appearance they presented to the third member of the party; “if I were you I should start with it down my back.”
“Ah, nonsense, Mr. Dysart; why would you have me make a Judy of myself that way?”
“Because it’s the loveliest hair I’ve ever seen,” answered Christopher, the words coming to his lips almost without his volition, and in their utterance causing his heart to give one or two unexpected throbs.
“Oh!” There was as much astonishment as pleasure in the exclamation, and she became as red as fire. She turned her head away, and looked back to see where Lambert was.
She had heard from Hawkins only this morning, asking her for a piece of the hair that Christopher had called lovely. She had cut off a little curl from the place he had specified, near her temple, and had posted it to him this very afternoon after Charlotte went out; but all the things that Hawkins had said of her hair did not seem to her so wonderful as that Mr. Dysart should pay her a compliment.
Lambert was quite silent after he joined them. In his heart he was cursing everything and everyone, the chestnut, Christopher, Francie, and most of all himself, for having said the things that he had said. All the good he had done was to leave no doubt in Christopher’s mind that Hawkins was out of the running, and as for telling him that Francie was a flirt, an ass like that didn’t so much as know the meaning of the word flirting. He knew now that he had made a fool of himself, and the remembrance of that disgusted expression on Christopher’s face made his better judgment return as burningly as the blood into veins numbed with cold. At the cross-roads next before Bruff, he broke in upon the exchange of experiences of the Dublin theatres that was going on very enjoyably beside him.
“I’m afraid we must part company here, Dysart,” he said in as civil a voice as he could muster; “I want to speak to a farmer who lives down this way.”
Christopher made his farewells, and rode slowly down the hill towards Bruff. It was a hill that had been cut down in the Famine, so that the fields on either side rose high above its level, and the red poppies and yellowing corn nodded into the sky over his head. The bay horse was collecting himself for a final trot to the avenue gates, when he found himself stopped, and, after a moment of hesitation on the part of his rider, was sent up the hill again a good deal faster than he had come down. Christopher pulled up again on the top of the hill. He was higher now than the corn, and, looking across its multitudinous, rustling surface, he saw the figure that some errant impulse had made him come back to see. Francie’s head was turned towards Lambert, and she was evidently talking to him. Christopher’s eyes followed the pair till they were out of sight, and then he again turned his horse, and went home to Bruff.