Rather stiffly he dismounted and, slipping the reins loosely over his arm, walked towards Ann, the mare following him meekly, like a beaten child. He looked fagged out, but his blue eyes still gleamed with their old indomitable fire.
“Brett! How could you?” exclaimed Ann breathlessly, as they approached.
“How could I—what?”
“Gallop the mare like that, just after she’d run away? She might have bolted with you again.”
He threw back his head and laughed.
“Not likely! She’ll never try those tricks with me again. Will you, old lady?”—and he rubbed the black velvet muzzle at his side with a kindly hand. To Ann’s astonishment, the mare, dripping with the sweat of sheer exhaustion, her coat striped with the hiding Brett had given her, pushed her head forward, nuzzling his sleeve.
“She bolted the first time for her own amusement,” he continued. “The second gallop was for mine”—grimly. “Don’t you see, she’d have bolted again whenever the fit took her if I hadn’t punished her. The only cure was to make her gallop till she was dead beat. She knows which of us is master now. And she doesn’t bear me any grudge, either. Do you, old thing?” And he patted the mare’s streaming neck.
“I wonder she doesn’t,” said Ann. “Wasn’t it—rather brutal of you?”
“Not a bit. Merely necessary. And neither people nor animals bear a grudge when once they are mastered, fair and square.” His eyes, with a gay, dare-devil challenge in them, flashed up and met hers. “You’ll find that out some day,” he added.
“I hope not,” replied Ann stiffly. Then, remembering how near death he had been, she softened. “Anyway, I’m thankful you’re alive. I don’t know how you managed to pull the mare round as you did.”