“No,” said Peter. “I’ve been through a very revolt—a very disagreeable experience, and I’ve come up here to get some fresh air. I don’t want to be sociable.”
“That’s right. Truthful as ever. But one word before we separate. Keppel has just received two proofs of Haden’s last job. He asks awful prices for them, but you ought to see them.”
“Thanks.” And the two friends separated as only true friends can separate.
Peter rode on, buried in his own thoughts. The park was rather empty, for dark comes on early in March, and dusk was already in the air. He shook himself presently, and set Mutineer at a sharp canter round the larger circle of the bridle path. But before they had half swung the circle, he was deep in thought again, and Mutineer was taking his own pace. Peter deserved to get a stumble and a broken neck or leg, but he didn’t. He was saved from it by an incident which never won any credit for its good results to Peter, however much credit it gained him.
Peter was so deeply engrossed in his own thoughts that he did not hear the clutter of a horse’s feet behind him, just as he struck the long stretch of the comparatively straight path along the Reservoir. But Mutineer did, and pricked up his ears. Mutineer could not talk articulately, but all true lovers of horses understand their language. Mutineer’s cogitations, transmuted into human speech, were something to this effect:
“Hello! What’s that horse trying to do? He can’t for a moment expect to pass me!”
But the next moment a roan mare actually did pass him, going at a swift gallop.
Mutineer laid his ears back, “The impudence!” he said. “Does that little whiffet of a roan mare think she’s going to show me her heels? I’ll teach her!” It is a curious fact that both the men and horses who are most seldom passed by their kind, object to it most when it happens.
Peter suddenly came back to affairs earthly to find Mutineer just settling into a gait not permitted by Park regulations. He drew rein, and Mutineer, knowing that the fun was up, danced round the path in his bad temper.
“Really,” he said to himself, “if I wasn’t so fond of you, I’d give you and that mare, an awful lesson. Hello! not another? This is too much!”