“I wanted to ask you about that horse you rode yesterday, a beautiful animal. What do you call him?”
“Miles Aroon,” said Stonor, like a wooden man. He dreaded that she meant to go on and enlarge on his riding tricks. In his modesty he now regarded that he had made an awful ass of himself the day before. But she stuck to horse-flesh.
“He’s a beauty! Would he let me ride him?”
“Oh, yes! He has no bad tricks. I broke him myself. But of course he knows nothing of side-saddles.”
“I ride astride.”
“I believe we’re all going for a twilight ride to-night. I’ll bring him for you.”
As a result of this Stonor’s praiseworthy resolutions to keep out of harm’s way were much weakened. Indeed, late that night in his little room in quarters he gave himself up to the most outrageous dreams of a possible future happiness. Stonor was quite unversed in the ways of modern ladies; all his information on the subject had been gleaned from romances, which, as everybody knows, are always behind the times in such matters, and it is possible that he banked too much on the simple fact of her singling him out on the walk home.
There was a great obstacle in his way; the force sets its face against matrimony during the term of service. Stonor in his single-mindedness never thought that there were other careers. “I shall have to get a commission,” he thought. “An inspectorship is little enough to offer her. But what an ornament she’d be to a post! And she’d love the life; she loves horses. But Lord! it’s difficult nowadays, with nothing going on. If an Indian war would only break out!”—He was quite ready to sacrifice the unfortunate red race.
On Monday night he was again bidden to dine at Enterprise House. As Gaviller since the day before had been no more than decently polite, Stonor ventured to hope that the invitation might have been instigated by her. At any rate he was placed by her side this time, where he sat a little dizzy with happiness, and totally oblivious to food. At the same time it should be understood that the young lady had no veiled glances or hidden meanings for him alone; she treated him, as she did all the others, to perfect candour.
After dinner they had music in the drawing-room. The piano was grotesquely out of tune, but what cared they for that? She touched it and their souls were drawn out of their bodies. Probably the performer suffered, but she played on with a smile. They listened entranced until darkness fell, and when it is dark at Enterprise in June it is high time to go to bed.