"You must be shaken, Mr. Lawrence," he said. "Why don't you take the groom's horse and ride home with us?"
"I can't ride," answered the younger man, loud enough for Brinsley to hear him. "And you know it perfectly well," he added under his breath.
Fanny frowned, but took no further notice of the remark.
"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand to Lawrence. "Come home as soon as you can, won't you?"
"Oh yes—that is, I think I'll just see you take that fence again, and then I want to get a little higher up the hill and do another bit of a sketch. Then I'll come home. There's no hurry, is there?"
"Don't show off," said Fanny, severely. "It isn't pretty. Good-bye."
She walked fast and overtook Brinsley in a few moments. At the foot of the hill he prepared to mount her, leaving his own horse to the groom. Then a thing happened which he was never able to explain, though he was an expert in the field and no one could mount a lady better than he, of all Fanny's acquaintances. He bent his knee and held out his hand and stiffened his back and made the necessary effort just at the right moment, as he very well knew. But for some inexplicable reason Fanny did not reach the saddle, nor anywhere near it, and she slipped and would certainly have fallen if he had not caught her with his other hand and held her on her feet.
"How awkward you are!" she exclaimed viciously, with a little stamp. "Let me get on alone!"
And thereupon, to his astonishment and mortification, she pushed him aside, set her foot in the stirrup,—for she was very tall and could do it easily,—and was up in a flash. Lawrence, looking down at them from the edge of the woods, saw what happened, and so did Stebbins, the groom, who grinned in silence. He hated Brinsley, and it is a bad sign when a good servant hates his master's guest. Lawrence felt that in addition to scoring one in the game, he was avenged on his enemy for the latter's taunting invitation to ride.
"I think I may count that, and mark two. I'm sure she did it on purpose," he said audibly to himself.