"This is why," he broke in.—"You may remember my engagement to Lady Constance Quayle, and the part you, very properly, took in the canceling of it? You know better than I do—though my imagination is pretty fertile in dealing with the situation—what instincts and feelings prompted you to take that part."
The young lady turned to him, her arms outstretched, notwithstanding bridle-reins and whip, her face, and those strange eyes which seemed so integral a part of the fair green-wood, full of sorrowful entreaty and distress.
"Richard, Richard," she cried, "will you never forgive me that? She didn't love you. It was horrible, yet in doing that which I did, I believed—I believe so still—I did what was right by you both."
"Undoubtedly you did right—and that justifies my contention. In doing that which you did you gave voice to the opinion of all wholesome-minded people. That's exactly where it is. You felt the whole business to be outrageous. So it was. I heartily agree."—He paused, and the trees talked softly together, bending down a little to listen and to look.—"As you say, she wasn't in love. Poor child, how could she be? No woman ever will be—at least not in love of the nobler sort—of the sort which, if one cannot have it, one had a vast deal better have no love at all."
"But I am not so sure of that," Honoria said stoutly. "You rush to conclusions. Isn't it rather a reflection on all the rest of us to take little Lady Constance as the measure of the insight and sensibility of the whole sex? And then she had already lost all her innocent, little heart to Captain Decies. Indeed you're not fair to us.—Wait——"
"Like Ludovic Quayle?"
Miss St. Quentin straightened herself in the saddle.
"Oh! dear no, not the least like Ludovic Quayle!" she said.
Which enigmatic reply produced silence for a while on Dickie's part. For there were various ways in which it might be interpreted, some flattering, some eminently unflattering, to himself. And from every point of view it was wisest to accept that last form of interpretation. The whole conversation had been perilous in character. It had been too intimate, had touched him too nearly, taking place here in the clear glooms of the green-wood moreover which bore such haunting kinship to those singularly sincere, and yet mysterious, eyes. It is dangerous to ride across the floor of ocean with the whispering tide sweeping overhead, and in such gallant company, besides, that to ride thus forever could hardly come amiss!—Richard, in his turn, straightened himself up in the saddle, opened his chest, taking a long breath, carried his head high, said a stern "get thee behind me, Satan," to encroaching sentiment and emotion, and to those fair visions which his companion's presence and her somewhat daring talk had conjured up. He defied the earth-magic, defied those sylvan deities who as he divined, sought to enthral him. For the moment he confounded Honoria's influence with theirs. It was something of a battle, and not the first one he had fought to-day. For the great, white road which leads onward to Perfection looked dusty and arid enough—no reposeful shadow, no mystery, no beguiling green glooms over it! Stark, straight, hard, it stretched on endlessly, as it seemed, ahead. To travel it was slow and tedious work, in any case; and to travel it on crutches!—But it was worse than useless to play with such thoughts as these. He would put a stop to this disintegrating talk. He turned to Honoria and spoke lightly, with a return of self-mockery.
"Oh! your first instinct was the true one, depend upon it," he said. "Though I don't deny it contributed, indirectly, to giving me a pretty rough time."