Then presently the pair were driving along country lanes in the very midst of all the burgeoning beauty of the season, and Georgiana was like a captive bird let loose. Her companion as well responded to the call of Nature at her loveliest, and the tireless worker of the study seemed changed at a word to a bright-eyed idler of the most carefree sort. The two gave themselves up without restraint to the enjoyment of the hour.
"I wonder how long it is," said Mr. Jefferson, letting the reins lie loose at a leafy curve of the road while the black horse willingly walked, "since I have had a drive like this. Not for ten years at least."
"You've lived always in a great city?"
"Since boyhood—in the heart of it."
"And have driven motors, not horses, for those ten years."
"Yes, like everybody else. But I spent all my summers as a boy on my grandfather's farm, and there I drove horses and rode them and did acrobatic feats on their bare backs. I was a wild Indian, a cowboy, and a captain of cavalry by turns. Those were happy days, and on a day like this they don't seem long ago."
"They can't be so dreadfully long ago," she dared, with a glance at the interesting profile beside her.
"Can't they? Don't I look pretty aged compared with your youth?"
"I'm not so remarkably young," she retorted.
"Aren't you? You are about ten years younger than I. That's a big leap and must make me seem a grandfather indeed."