“Too fast?” Holden inquired, his eyes on the horses’ ears.
“It couldn’t be!” she answered with excitement.
The rapid motion was what her mood needed to fire it. It lit a spark in her cold, lethargic determination. She was possessed with that feeling of triumph speed creates—a physical elation, a surety that nothing in life could stand still again. A faint color grew in her cheeks. Her eyes had a fire that seldom burned in their somber pupils; a color and a fire that Holden marked in his greater leisure, with the slackened speed of the horses rising the steep hill.
“You look so lit up,” he told her, half wonderingly.
“It’s the driving,” she explained, “or rather flying. We hardly seemed to touch earth.”
“Just driving!” He was amused. “Well, I like it. It’s my play. It’s famous to have a strong, lively pair of brutes under your hand to hurry or pull up as you like.”
Florence looked as though that pleasure were quite within her comprehension.
“But,” he added, with another look at her glowing face, “it would take the biggest deal in the country to make me feel within twenty miles of the way you look.”
“Oh, do I look all that?” She seemed so to comprehend! He warmed under the kindness of her fancy.
“You know I want above all things to please you,” he began.