Still he was cautious. The groom behind heard them laugh more than once—but it was she who suggested, as they turned into Dupont Circle, “A little faster?”
Still Sên King-lo set but a moderately quickened pace. They still were keeping it so when they met Miss Smith face to face. But he had no doubt now that this girl could ride, and her English eyes, almost as quick to horsemanship as his were to most things, knew that Sên King-lo rode as well as a Derby jockey.
And, if he rode today to please a girl who—he thought—disliked him, Sên King-lo rode to win.
They rode far, and after the banks of Rock Creek they pushed on into the country, and rode faster and faster.
“How joyous!” she called to him once, in a camaraderie that knew no race distinctions.
“Glorious, isn’t it!” Sên answered.
“You ride better than Charles does even,” she told him blithely; “and you ride our English fashion. You rise in your saddle.”
“I learned to ride in England when I was a boy at school,” he explained. “But I usually ride American fashion when I jog off by myself.”
“Why?” she asked quickly.
“I enjoy it more.”