"I don't know. I can't even guess," he mumbled.
"Do you think it could have been—All right, Mr. Forbes, I'll be careful of your razor-blades."
This last aloud for the benefit of Mrs. Neff, who came by and spoke with icy severity—was it ironical?
"Chambermaids are not allowed to flirt with customers in this hotel." She went on up; and Persis followed helplessly, leaving Forbes distraught.
Later he saw her at his windows beating his pillows. The intimate implication thrilled him, and he threw her a kiss while pretending to take his cigar from his lips, and she retreated into the embrasure to answer it with a secret waft from her own mouth.
Forbes had hoped to be invited to ride with Persis, and had put on a pair of civilian riding-breeches and his army puttees. But he was ignored in the program for the day, announced by Enslee, who decreed that he and Persis would ride over to the Sleepy Hollow Country Club, by the quietest roads they could find, while the rest were to motor across. They would all have luncheon together and return in the same way. "If that horse of mine doesn't break both of our fool necks," he added.
"What about Persis and her horse's neck?" Ten Eyck asked, speaking Forbes' own uneasy thought.
"Oh, Persis can ride anything," Willie said. "She's a born centaurette, while a horse and I are like oil and water—only oil always stays on top, and I don't."
But Forbes did not feel so sure of Persis as Willie did. He ventured to say as much when she appeared, but she laughed at him:
"Horses are not among my afraids. I've ridden since I graduated from the back of a Great Dane to a Shetland pony. I've got rubber bones; when I fall off I bounce back."