“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she cried, half-way down the garden path. “But Gerard—I thought you would know?”
“I know nothing of Gerard’s arrangements,” answered Otto with cold annoyance. “Never mind; I have brought your father’s tiger-skin. Is there any one here could hold the horse?”
“Why, of course,” she said, springing forward.
“You? I fancied you would be afraid of horses.” Otto began tugging at a brown-paper parcel wedged under the seat. As the carriage swayed forward the animal, grown restless, plunged.
“Naturally,” replied Ursula, one firm hand at its mouth. She flushed. “Hatred of cruelty stands, with an average man, for cowardice.”
“Don’t. You hurt one,” cried Otto, turning, with altered voice. She calmed down immediately.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “Hector knows me longer and better than you. Your father often lets me drive him.”
“This is it,” replied Otto, tearing back a strip of covering. A tawny mass of fur, broken suddenly loose, poured down into the dusty road.
“Oh, what a beauty!” exclaimed Josine, who had ventured out in a wrap beneath the laughing sky.
And, “Oh, what a beauty!” echoed Ursula.