30
The air was thin and chilly; snow had fallen in the mountains to the north, and the wind was bringing the cold down to The Corner. Nelly Lebrun noted this as she dressed and made up her mind accordingly. She sent out two messages: one to the cook to send breakfast to her room, which she ate while she finished dressing with care; and the other to the gambling house, summoning one of the waiters. When he came, she gave him a note for Donnegan. The fellow flashed a glance at her as he took the envelope. There was no need to give that name and address in The Corner, and the girl tingled under the glance.
She finished her breakfast and then concentrated in polishing up her appearance. From all of which it may be gathered that Nelly Lebrun was in love with Donnegan, but she really was not. But he had touched in her that cord of romance which runs through every woman; whenever it is touched the vibration is music, and Nelly was filled with the sound of it. And except for Lord Nick, there is no doubt that she would have really lost her head; for she kept seeing the face of Donnegan, as he had leaned toward her across the little table in Milligan's. And that, as anyone may know, is a dangerous symptom.
Her glances were alternating between her mirror and her watch, and the hands of the latter pointed to the fact that fifty minutes of her hour had elapsed when a message came up that she was waited for in the street below. So Nelly Lebrun went down in her riding costume, the corduroy swishing at each step, and tapping her shining boots with the riding crop. Her own horse she found at the hitching rack, and beside it Donnegan was on his chestnut horse. It was a tall horse, and he looked more diminutive than ever before, pitched so high in the saddle.
He was on the ground in a flash with the reins tucked under one arm and his hat under the other; she became aware of gloves and white-linen stock, and pale, narrow face. Truly Donnegan made a natty appearance.
"There's no day like a cool day for riding," she said, "and I thought you might agree with me."
He untethered her horse while he murmured an answer. But for his attitude she cared little so long as she had him riding away from that house on the hill where Lord Nick in all his terror would appear in some few minutes. Besides, as they swung up the road—the chestnut at a long-strided canter and Nelly's black at a soft and choppy pace—the wind of the gallop struck into her face; Nelly was made to enjoy things one by one and not two by two. They hit over the hills, and when the first impulse of the ride was done they were a mile or more away from The Corner—and Lord Nick.
The resemblance between the two men was less striking now that she had Donnegan beside her. He seemed more wizened, paler, and intense as a violin string screwed to the snapping point; there was none of the lordly tolerance of Nick about him; he was like a bull terrier compared with a stag hound. And only the color of his eyes and his hair made her make the comparison at all.
"What could be better?" she said when they checked their horses on a hilltop to look over a gradual falling of the ground below. "What could be better?" The wind flattened a loose curl of hair against her cheek, and overhead the wild geese were flying and crying, small and far away.