“You ride marvelously,” he conceded, with that air of studiously avoiding a compliment which had the gift of making her rear mentally up on end, it was so obviously forced.
“My grateful thanks to you, good sir,” she said. “I salute you,” and with a quick, roguish gesture she gravely raised her straw hat and suited the action to the words.
“Good Lord!” came from Basil. “Don’t you wear any pins to hold that thing on?”
“Not being, so far, entirely deprived of hair,” she replied, “pins would be a pure nuisance.”
“Deprived of hair!” he could not help exclaiming. “I should think not; but what’s that got to do with it?”
“Everything! Can’t you see that when it’s all tightly piled atop of my head, a well-made sailor-hat just fits over it? Its crown, filled to the edges, can’t stir; it isn’t like a modern crown, you see, which is a comfort.”
Basil did not laugh outright, but he looked as if he were very near doing so, and this, too, was by way of being a comfort to the rider of “Narses.”
They were now following a narrower path on the summit of a low hill, away inland, and, having slackened speed to let their horses breathe, it was difficult to avoid a chat.
“I am leaving to-morrow,” began Basil, with that startling lack of the most ordinary tact which is displayed by men of his stamp under certain conditions.
“Indeed!”