So they both sat down quietly, and for a few moments neither spoke.
She had put up her hair during his absence, and now looked wide-awake and quite neat.
"I had a most unlucky day," he said—for something to say. "I could not back a single winner. On the whole I think I am bored with racing."
"It has always seemed boring to me," she said. "If it were to try the mettle of a horse one had bred I could understand that; or to ride it oneself and get the better of an adversary: but just with sharp practices—and for money! It seems so common a thing, I never could take an interest in that."
"Does anything interest you?" he hazarded, and then he felt sorry he had shown enough interest to ask.
"Yes," she said slowly, "but perhaps not many games. My life has always been too ordered by the games of others, to take to them myself." And then she stopped abruptly. She could not suppose her life interested him much.
But, on the contrary, he was intensely interested, if she had known.
He felt inclined to tell her so, and that the whole of the present situation was ridiculous, and that he wanted to know her innermost thoughts. He was beginning to examine her all critically, and to take in every point. Beyond his passionate admiration for her beauty there was something more to analyze.
What was the subtle something of mystery and charm? Why could she not unbend and tell him the meaning in those fathomless, dark eyes?—What could they look like, if filled with love and tenderness? Ah!
And if he had done as he felt inclined at the moment the ice might have been broken, and at the end of the week they would probably have been in each other's arms. But fate ordered otherwise, and an incident that night, at dinner, caused a fresh storm.