"I was very strenuous riding my hobby against yours, wasn't I?" she exclaimed in a flutter of distraction that made it easy for him to descend from his own steed. "I stated a feeling. I made a guess, a threat about your winning—and all in the air. That's a woman's privilege; one men grant, isn't it?"
"We enjoy doing so," he replied, all urbanity.
"Thank you!" she said simply. "I must be at home in time for the children's lesson on Sunday. My sleeper is engaged, and if I am not to miss the train I must go immediately."
With an undeniable shock of regret he realized that the interview was over. Really, he had had a very good time; not only that, but—.
"Will it be ten years before we meet again?" he asked.
"Perhaps, unless you change the rules about officers dossing the frontier to take tea," she replied.
"Even if I did, the vice-chief of staff might hardly go."
"Then perhaps you must wait," she warned him, "until the teachers of peace have done away with all frontiers."
"Or, if there were war, I should come!" he answered in kind. He half wished that this might start another argument and she would miss her train. But she made no reply. "And you may come to the Gray capital again. You are not through travelling!" he added.
This aroused her afresh; the flame was back in her eyes.