“I know you do,” he responded cordially. “I’d like you to go often, if you’ll be careful not to take any chances.” He smiled at the recollection of the outcome of that ride of theirs to the Quemado, and of the excitement with which they compared experiences when they got back home. Sylvia and Runyon had made a run for it and had got home before the worst of it came, she had said. But Harboro and the General Manager had waited until the storm had spent itself, both sitting in the carriage with their handkerchiefs pressed to their nostrils, and their coats drawn up about their heads. He remembered, too, how the dust-fog had lingered in the air until well into the next day, like a ghost which could not be laid.
He brought himself back from the recollection of that night. “If you like, I’ll have the horse sent every day—or, better still, you shall have a horse of your own.”
“No,” replied Sylvia, “I might not care to go often.” She had let her hair down and was brushing it thoughtfully. “The things which are ordered for you in advance are always half spoiled,” she added. “It’s better to think of things all of a sudden, and do them.”
He looked at her in perplexity. That wasn’t his way, certainly; but then she was still occasionally something of an enigma to him. He tried to dismiss the matter from his mind. He was provoked that it came back again and again, as if there were something extraordinary about it, something mysterious. “She only went for a ride,” he said to himself late at night, as if he were defending her.
CHAPTER XXIV
A month later Harboro came home one afternoon to find an envelope addressed to him on the table in the front hall.
He was glad afterward that Sylvia was engaged with Antonia in the dining-room, and did not have a chance to observe him as he examined the thing which that envelope contained.
It was a statement from one of the stables of the town, and it set forth the fact that Harboro was indebted to the stable for horse-hire. There were items, showing that on seven occasions during the past month a horse had been placed at the disposal of Mrs. Harboro.
Harboro was almost foolishly bewildered. Sylvia had gone riding seven times during the month, and she had not even mentioned the matter to him! Clearly here was a mystery. Her days were not sufficiently full of events to make seven outings a matter of little consequence to her. She was not given to reticence, even touching very little things. She had some reason for not wishing him to know of these movements of hers.
But this conclusion was absurd, of course. She would understand that the bill for services rendered would eventually come to him. He was relieved when that conclusion came to him. No, she was not seeking to make a mystery out of the matter. Still, the question recurred: Why had she avoided even the most casual mention of these outings?