“What could I do,� answered his wife with a piteous smile, “with Richard Skelton looking on and pitying me?�
“And what could I do, with Skelton challenging me in every tone of his voice and look of his eye? Don’t I know that Miles Lightfoot has got his orders to ruin me at any cost? And do you think that a man would quietly draw out and yield the field to another man under the circumstances? No, Elizabeth, I beat Skelton in the race for you, and I’ll beat him again on the Campdown course. And it isn’t so hard as you think. You know that black colt Alabaster, of old Tom Shapleigh’s? Well, that colt is more than three fourths thoroughbred—he has a strain of blood in him that goes straight back to Diomed. Now, that three fourths thoroughbred can beat any thoroughbred in Skelton’s stable; and Skelton himself said so in effect the night of that confounded dinner, and I’m going to have that horse. I shall have him with this money that you have enabled me to raise, and which I regard as a gift from you.�
Blair kissed her again—he certainly knew how to express his thanks. Elizabeth had heard the story about Alabaster and Diomed before.
“But I thought you said Mr. Shapleigh wouldn’t sell him?�
“He shall sell him, by George!� cried Blair violently, and bringing his fist down on the mantel. “Elizabeth, you can’t imagine how the desire to own that horse has taken possession of me. You make yourself jealous about a lot of pink-faced girls that I never looked at twice, and, if you only knew it, your real rival is Alabaster. I swear I am in love with that horse! I dream about him at night. I never saw such quarters in my life—so strong, so sinewy, yet so light! And in the daytime, as I ride by the pasture and see him roaming around, not half attended to, it maddens me that such a creature should not be more appreciated. If I had him I could pay off all the mortgages on this place. I could send Hilary to school, and have a governess for Mary. I could give you a new carriage, and, better than all, I could beat Skelton at his own game.�
He spoke with a strange fierceness, he so debonair and full of careless good humor. Elizabeth looked at him in amazement. In all their fifteen years of married life she had never seen this trait in him. He was so intense, so wrought up over the horse, that she was glad it was only a horse that excited him. Suppose it had been one of those pink-faced girls that Blair spoke of so contemptuously, but who liked his dashing manners and captivating ways only too well, Mrs. Blair thought.
“But suppose, for an instant, Mr. Shapleigh won’t sell him,� persisted Elizabeth.
“But he shall sell him!� shouted Blair for the second time. “What does he want with him—to drive him to old lady Shapleigh’s chaise? I assure you he talks about Sylvia’s wanting to keep the horse as a riding horse. It made me grind my teeth. It would be cruel—yes, cruel, Elizabeth, if I didn’t own that horse!�
Elizabeth was startled; she said nothing more about Alabaster, and Blair went off with his hands in his pockets toward Belfield, and in a little while she saw him leaning on the fence that divided the two places, as the lands came together at the river, eying the black horse that browsed about in the pasture in the late October afternoon.
The red-brown pasture-land glowed in the setting sun, and the masses of gorgeous sumac that bordered the field made great dashes of colour in the landscape. A worm fence divided the two plantations, and upon this fence Blair leaned, meditatively watching the horses as they champed about the field. Elizabeth, who was far-sighted, could see him perfectly well, his stalwart and somewhat overgrown figure outlined against the twilight sky. A negro boy came through the field whistling, and singing, to drive the horses into the stable lot at Belfield. He shied a stick at Alabaster to make him move on. At that Blair sprang over the fence, and, seizing the boy, shook him so violently that Elizabeth was frightened, thinking he might really be harmed by Blair in his rage.