They were as small as dolls on toys where they jogged along the distant high-road. A tiny motor-cycle, whose thumping flight was faintly audible even at such a distance, whizzed round a curve and almost cut the horses' feet from under them. The animals lifted their hoofs well out of danger, but they came to earth again out of the cloud of dust, and Forbes dared to resume the business of breathing.
He saw that Enslee was a well-schooled rider who annoyed his horse a good deal, yet ruled him somehow. But Persis was perfect to the saddle, part of the horse, as fearless and as expert in her smart gear as any cowgirl of the plains.
Forbes watched her till the last curve blotted her from his sight, and yearned after her like a child left behind from a picnic. He looked at his own riding-costume ruefully, and said that he would better change. But the others would not wait for him. Mrs. Neff urged:
"They're very becoming. Keep 'em on. You've got good legs, and you make Willie look like a wishbone."
Enslee had sent his own driver and his own car to take them to the club, and with an unusual thoughtfulness had ordered the robe-rack filled with lilacs. And so they rode behind a screen of purple beauty, and breathed in a spicy air filtered through flowers.
Forbes continued his search for a clue to last night's eavesdropper in the manner of his fellow-passengers. They were all in high spirits, which might be in any one's case either ghoulish glee or innocence. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Neff's enthusiasm was owing to her knowledge that Senator Tait was at the Country Club; but she did not tell Forbes lest her daughter hear. Alice was rapturous in the knowledge that Stowe Webb had arranged before she left New York to be at the club against just such an opportunity as this; but she did not explain to Forbes lest her mother hear. Winifred was buoyant because Ten Eyck had promised her a few sets of tennis, and she saw herself already whole ounces leaner. And Ten Eyck was cheerful because the world usually amused Ten Eyck when the weather was fit. And to-day, as old Gower put it, "The weder was merie and faire ynough."
Merry and fair enough for any wight, and the scenery wonderful. After a few swift miles of country whose old walls, well-groomed meadows, and shapely forests gave a look of England, the land rose higher and higher, till the car swung out at last on a height commanding a river in the utmost contrast with England's stream. As Ten Eyck put it, "The Thames and the Hudson are as much alike as a pearl necklace and an anchor-chain." The water came down between its hills in tremendous calm, and the Palisades opposite were no longer sheer cliffs, but a congress of ponderous masses like reclining gods along a banquet board.
The homes responded, of necessity, to the scene. In place of the ballroom levels and exquisite parks along the reaches of the Thames, with its flat punts and its houseboats moored in shady niches, these lawns sloped and rolled in massive sweeps, fronting a mighty stream.
Forbes' heart could not rise to the bigness of the scene; it was too much tossed between the hope that the next turn might reveal Persis, spick and span on a glossy horse, and the fear that some of these countless whizzing, hooting motors might frighten the beast into panic and hurl her under the swarming wheels.
Ten Eyck seemed to note the anxiety that kept his eyes shuttling this way and that, for he remarked, as if quite casually: