'You don't look very unhappy,' laughed the girl, as he finished the task of putting her up by professional little tugs at her habit to make it sit wrinkle-less. 'And oh! by the way, it's all right about your leave. Father has arranged it; he told me so just now.'
'How good you are! If I could only leave my interests in your hands, always, the future would have no terrors for me, as they say in the melodramas. Good-bye, Miss Tweedie, till dinner-time, and--you won't forget about the watch, will you? I don't want Mrs. Boynton----'
'I'll take care she doesn't make off with it,' interrupted Rose, wilfully unsympathetic, as she moved away at a walk. A hundred yards or so along the broad ride--which had been cut for the occasion in the hill-side from the high road to the picnic place--a zigzag bridle-path led down into the valley. Rose had never ridden that way, but she knew that, once at the stream below her, a recognised short cut would take her direct to her destination. At the worst, she might have to dismount and lead her horse for a while, and there was something decidedly fascinating in a downward path at all times, more especially when every step showed something new stealing into vision out of a blue mist. In addition, she would avoid the rush of people, and of late Rose Tweedie had found a large proportion of her fellow-creatures very tiresome; perhaps because humanity is only gifted with a certain capacity for liking, and she expended too much of hers on one person. The first mile or so fully justified her choice; the path, if steep, was safe, and, after passing over a small bridge, she was about to follow a track, apparently leading down the right side of the ravine to the road below, when she heard a faint shout behind her to the left. With her experience of the Himalayas, she stopped instantly, knowing she must be on the wrong track, and retraced her steps, expecting, after a few turns, to come on the shepherd or coolie, who, having seen her from above, had raised the warning cry. Instead of this she came on Lewis Gordon, riding at what was really a breakneck pace for the style of the path. He pulled up suddenly.
'Miss Tweedie! you don't mean to say it was you I saw on the other bank? I had half a mind not to shout, for a man with a clever pony could do it easily. What a piece of luck for you I did!'
She flushed up at once. 'I'm afraid I don't see it in that light. I've no doubt I could have done it as easily as a man, and it is annoying to be brought back half a mile out of your road for nothing.'
'Unless that road happens to be a mile longer to begin with, as it is in this case,' replied Lewis coolly. 'But you really ought not to have tried the short cut alone. Your father, of course, had arranged to meet the Lieut.-Governor, and Keene couldn't get away; but if you had asked me, I should have been delighted to do my duty--I suppose you won't let me say pleasure; that is reserved for my juniors.' There was a certain snappishness in the conclusion of his speech which somehow appeased Rose's wrath.
The futility of many proverbs has scarcely a better example than that one which sets the orthodox number for anger at two, when almost universally it is either one or three. For the spectacle of another man losing his temper is almost sure to soothe the first offender, unless dispassionate humanity reappears in the shape of a spectator. So Rose said sweetly that he was always very kind, and she certainly would have asked him to pioneer her, had she anticipated any difficulty; since no one could give a better lead over than Bronzewing and her rider. And then, having reached the valley and a broader path, they dawdled along it at a walk beside the very edge of a stream splashing and dashing over its pebbly bed, and curving round tiny meadows just large enough to serve as a stand for some huge walnut tree. The soft mist they had seen from above, now they were in it, only intensified the blueness of the shadows or the gold of the sunlight following the contours of the hills. Down in the hollows the maiden-hair fern grew like a forest, out in the open great turk's-cap lilies rose higher than the blue and white columbines, and in every cranny the potentilla hung out its bunches of scarlet, tasteless, strawberry-like fruit.
Side by side they strolled for a mile or more, along a level grassy path, as if there were no such thing as effort in the world, as if civilisation and comfort, dinner and bed, all the necessaries of life in fact, did not lie two thousand feet or so over their heads.
'This way, I'm afraid,' said Lewis at last, turning his pony into a road joining the path at right angles; an engineered road with drains and retaining walls, scientific, uninteresting, guiltless of ups and downs, facing the ascent evenly.
'Oh dear!' cried Rose in tones of regret. And then they both laughed. But the peace of the valley went with them, so that their gay chatter echoed up the zigzagging road to where glimpses of a dandy toiling on ahead showed through the trees. Its occupant looking downwards could see them far below, the girl in front, the man behind, their voices becoming clearer and clearer, until just at the last turn where the zigzag merged into the high road, each careless word was distinctly audible as they came scrambling up below the retaining wall, which at this point carried the branch to its junction with the main road. Gwen Boynton's hand closed tight on the shaft of her dandy, partly in sympathy with her thoughts, partly because the coolies swung round the last corner sharply. The wall, which was not two feet high at the first turn sloped rapidly up to some fifteen feet before ending in the one which supported the big road. As is usually the case, it was built in steps or terraces giving the required slant of support. Just as the dandy was at the turn of the road a horseman, followed by two mounted orderlies, came clattering along it; perhaps this frightened Rose's pony; perhaps the sudden swerve of the dandy to get out of the new-comer's way just as the girl was about to pass it, actually forced her mount into shying and backing. Anyhow, it did. There was a struggle, a rattle of stones over the edge, a slip, then a jerk back as the beast found a momentary foothold for its hind legs on the narrow step some two feet down. A cry of dismay broke from the spectators--for with the next movement a fall backwards seemed inevitable--but it ended in one of relief, as Rose wheeled the pony clear round with swift decision, and giving it a cut with her whip leapt into the road below. It was a bold stroke for life instead of death, and as the pony came on its knees with the shock, it seemed for an instant as if both it and its rider must go rolling over and over down the side of the hill. The next they had both struggled to their feet, and stood quivering all over, but safe and absolutely unhurt. Lewis, who had pulled up at the corner aghast with impotent horror, was back beside them, almost incoherent in his relief and admiration.