“Had you not better have another horse to-day?”
“Let myself be conquered? No, thank you. I always say that if that once were to happen, it would never be safe ever for me to ride Guy again.”
The battle with the horse brought the colour to her face and the light to her eyes. She looked more approachable now as she cantered along beside him (victorious at last, with her dogs bounding about her) than she had ever done before. He drew her out a little about her four-footed favourites, and being a lover of animals himself, and knowing their ways, they found a good deal to say without trenching in any way upon dangerous or personal topics.
They visited the places indicated by Lord Trevlyn, and Randolph admired the beauties of the wild coast with a genuine appreciation that satisfied Monica. Had her companion been anybody but himself—an alien usurper come to spy out the land that would some time be his own—had his praises been less sounded in her ears by Lady Diana, whose praise was in Monica’s eyes worse than any open condemnation—she could almost have found it in her heart to like him; but as it was, jealous distrust drove all kindlier feelings away, and even his handsome person and pleasant address added to her sense of hostility and disfavour.
Why was he to win all hearts—he who would so ruthlessly act the part of tyrant and foe, as soon as his chance came? Did not even his friend, Lady Diana, continually repeat that his succession to the Trevlyn estate must inevitably mean an immediate break-up of all existing forms and usages? Was it not an understood thing that he would exercise his power without considering anything but his strict legal right? Lady Diana knew the world—that world to which Randolph evidently belonged. If this was her opinion, was it not presumably the right one? She sneered openly at the suggestion her niece had once thrown out of the possibility of his granting to Arthur liberty to remain at Trevlyn.
“You foolish child!” she said sharply. “What is Arthur to him? Men do not make sentimental attachments to each other. Arthur has no right here, and Mr. Trevlyn will show him so very plainly when the time comes.”
Was it any wonder that Monica’s heart rose in revolt against this handsome, powerful stranger, who seemed in a manner to hold her whole future in his strong hands? Was it strange she avoided him? Was it difficult to understand that she distrusted him, and that only his present kindness to Arthur and the lad’s affection for him enabled her to tolerate with any kind of submission his presence in the house?
He tried now to make her talk of herself, of Arthur, of her home and her life there, but she became at once impenetrably silent. Her face assumed its old look of statuesque hauteur. The ride back to the Castle was a very silent one. Randolph had enjoyed the hour he had spent in the company of Lady Monica, but he could not flatter himself that much ground had been gained.
