“How did you know that I rode?” she asked.
“I recalled seeing your picture in riding habit in one of the magazines.”
“But that doesn’t prove anything. It’s the privilege of an actress to be photographed in habit, even if she [299] ]wouldn’t go near enough to a real horse to feed him a lump of sugar.”
He laughed, looked down at her slim straight body in its tan coat, at the graceful limbs swung across her mount, at her glossy gold hair and the light of the sun in her eyes. “Well, I should have known you did anyway. There’s nothing vital you couldn’t do.”
He put it not as a question but directly, as if giving her the information. She found no answer. This man left her strangely speechless. For no reason at all her cheeks went red with a deeper flush than the exercise had brought to them.
She said little during the two hours of their ride. He told her of the fascination the theater had for him. Then her eyes shone through their black lashes and she told him it was her life. She loved it not as an artist loves his work but with the passion one gives a human thing.
“That’s why you’ve made good,” he answered promptly. “Because you’ve given yourself completely.” He paused, then with the usual startling abruptness: “Do you know, I had an actual sense of pride last night, watching that crowd swarm round you. Odd, that—isn’t it—in a man who had just met you?”
“Yes.” She did not meet the gaze she knew was turned on her.
When they dismounted and he was handing her into the car, he bent down and into his non-committal eyes came a warmth that enveloped her like a flame.
“And to think that I flipped a coin last night whether to go to the Show or go to see you!”