Meanwhile, Miss Macormac had found time to recover her composure. Turning to Mr. Walters she showed him a bright and pretty face, with just such traces of the vexation that had clouded it as are left by passing showers on an April sky. Her eyes looked deeper and darker for their late moisture, her little nose all the daintier that its transparent nostrils were tinged with pink.
She gave him her hand frankly, as though to express silent sympathy and friendship. Sinking into a seat by her side, Daisy embarked on a long and detailed account of the race, the way he had ridden it, the performances of St. George, Leprauchan, Shaneen, and his own black mare.
Though he seldom got excited, he could not but break into a glowing description, as he warmed with his narrative. "When I came to the wall," he declared, "I was as sure of winning as I am of sitting by you now. St. George had been disposed of, and he was the only horse in the race whose form I did not know to a pound. Leprauchan, I felt satisfied, could never live the pace, if I made it hot enough. And as for little Shaneen, the mare's stride would be safe to beat him, if we finished with a set-to, in the run-in. Everything had come off exactly to suit me, and when we rounded the last turn but one I caught hold of Satanella, and set her going down the hill like an express train!"
"Did ye now?" she murmured, her deep grey eyes looking earnestly into his, her sweet lips parted as though with a breathless interest that drank in every syllable he spoke.
"Did ye now?" Only three words, yet carrying with them a charm to convince the most practical of men that the days of spells and witchcraft are not yet gone by. An Englishwoman would have observed, "Really!" "Oh, indeed!" "You don't say so!" or made use of some such cold conventional expression to denote languid attention, not thoroughly aroused; but the Irish girl's "did ye now?" identified her at once with her companion and his doings, started them both incontinently on that path of congenial partnership, which is so seductive to the traveller, smooth, pleasant all down hill, and leading—who knows where?
Perhaps neither deep liquid eyes, nor dark lashes, nor arched brows, nor even smiles and blushes, and shapely graceful forms, would arm these Irish ladies with such unequalled and irresistible powers, were it not for their kindly womanly nature that adapts itself so graciously to those with whom it comes in contact—their encouraging "Did ye now?" that despises no trifle, is wearied with no details, and asks only for his confidence whom they honour with their regard. Perhaps, also, it is this faculty of sympathy and assimilation, predominant in both sexes, that makes Irish society the pleasantest in the world.
Thus encouraged, Daisy went off again at score, described each fence to his eager listener, dwelt on every stride, and explained the catastrophe of the woman and child, observing, in conclusion, with a philosophy all his own, that it was "hard lines to be done just at the finish, and lose a hat-full of money, by three-quarters of a yard!"
She looked up anxiously. "Did ye make such heavy bets now?" she said in a tone of tender reproach. "Ah! Captain Walters, ye told me ye never meant to run these risks again!"
"It was for the last time," he answered rather mournfully. "If the old woman had been at home and in bed, I should have been my own master at this moment, and then—never mind what then! It's no use bothering about that now!"