When they say good-night, he contents himself by squeezing five very cold fingers, and slipping a magnificent brilliant on to the third one, which pledge of her bondage Zai does not even glance at before she drops it into her pocket.
“Did you like the ball, Zai?” Trixy asks, as they brush their hair before going to bed.
“I hated it,” Zai answers, giving her chesnut tresses an impatient pull. “I wish I had never gone to it!”
CHAPTER VIII.
“SIMPLE FAITH THAN NORMAN BLOOD.”
“You’ll look at least on love’s remains;
A grave’s one violet!
Your look? that soothes a thousand pains.
What’s Death? You’ll love me yet!”
“Just be careful who mounts that chesnut to-day, Hargreaves,” Challen, the riding-master, says, pausing on his way at the door of the stable, and passing a keen glance over the horse in question. The chesnut is a big, good-looking hack, with a sleek satin coat, and just what would take a woman’s fancy, but there is a look about his eye that Challen does not like. “Put Miss Edwards on him, she has pluck enough to ride to the devil, but mind none of the new pupils go near him.”
Hargreaves assents, but he does not look content.
“She wants to ride the chesnut,” he says to himself. “She’s set her mind on it, and I hate to disappoint her! Bless her heart! Why, what’s the matter with you?” he continues aloud, going up to the chesnut, and passing his hand over the long, lean head. “I like you, because she likes you! You’d never think of hurting her, I’ll be bound, no more than anyone would, I know! My pretty one! I’d kill myself if any harm came to you—that I would!”