“There’s nothing like affliction for bringing characters of that sort low,” muttered Robert as he helped the young lady on his own horse. “And now, where’s that little beauty Ruby, I wonder? Dashed hisself to pieces as likely as not agin’ some of them rocks up there. Oh, yes, and there’ll be no ’count made at all of one of the prettiest little horses I ever broke in.”
Robert had to run by Clementina’s side, who was really considerably shaken and who gave way to violent hysterics soon after they started.
“Somehow, Phil, I thought you would remember,” she said at last, turning to her little companion and speaking in a broken voice.
“Why, of course we all remembered,” said Phil. “We were all more sorry about you than I can say; and as to Rachel, she has been crying like anything. It seems a pity, Clementina, it really does, you know——” And then he stopped.
“What seems a pity, Phil?”
“That you should be so obstinate. You know you were; and you were rude, too, for you should not have taken Rachel’s horse. It seems to me a great pity that people should try to pretend—everybody’s always trying to pretend; and what is the use of it? Now, if you had not tried to pretend that you could ride as well or better than Rachel, you wouldn’t have got into this trouble and we wouldn’t have been so terribly sorry. Where was the use of it, Clementina?” added Phil, gazing hard at the abashed and astonished young lady; “for nobody could expect you to ride as well as Rachel, who is a country girl and has been on horseback such a lot, you know.”
Phil delivered his lecture in the most innocent way, and Clementina received it with much humility, wondering all the time why she was not furiously angry; for surely this was the strangest way to speak to a girl who had been for three seasons under Captain Delacourt.
She made no reply to Phil’s harangue and rode on for some time without speaking.
Suddenly a little sigh from the boy, who kept so bravely at her side, reached her ears. She turned and looked at him. It was quite a new sensation for Clementina to observe any face critically except her own; but she did notice now the weariness round the lips and the way the slight little figure drooped forward.
“You’re tired, Phil,” she said. “You have tired yourself out to find me.”