“Shall we take the boy?” he asked, with a look at Launce, hopping hopefully in the sand.
Lucia glanced with a little shrug at Monseigneur. “If you think it is safe.”
“I guarantee that, of the two, my neck is the only one like to be broken. And that, Cousin Lucy, is of consequence to nobody.”
Lucia was bubbling over with mischief. “I do think you take very good care of your neck, Cousin Geoffrey,” she said kindly. “I hear of you as a very reckless young man, but I see nothing of it. You do no very hard things, and you always change your boots when they are wet. And I have left my whip near the little faun—Dio mio!—”
The others echoed her startled cry. For Geoffrey, with a sudden little laugh, faced the bay horse at the broad steps and began forcing him up them, with hand and knee and spur—up, up, snorting and straining, to the terrace. He swung him round the little faun, caught up Lucia’s whip, and came down the steps again in one leaping, clattering rush that seemed as if it must end in red ruin.
“My God, sir!” cried old Simmons shrilly, snatching at Launce.
The bay came down on his knees in a shower of sand and shingle, staggered up and on, and was carried clear across the beach-road into the surf. Here the rider had the mastery in an instant. And before they could catch breath he was at Lucia’s side, splashed to the hair, on the wet and trembling horse.
“Here is your whip, Cousin Lucy,” he said, gently.
“My God, sir!” quavered old Simmons again, running to the horse’s knees.
Lucia did not take the whip. She sat looking at Geoffrey, trembling exceedingly. “How dare you!” she said at last, under her breath, “how dare you!”—and then, bending forward, she broke into wild tears.