“But—look here,” said Dean Wolcott. “I don’t ride, you know. I’ve told you that before, haven’t I?”
He had told her several times, but it simply didn’t register. For a man—a hundred per cent man, who had been a soldier and her brother’s comrade, who was, above all, her man—not to ride was—ridiculous. He was using a phrase which didn’t mean anything; he probably didn’t care especially about riding (Boston was without doubt a wretched place in which to ride) or didn’t ride especially well; city men didn’t as a rule. But to say he didn’t ride— She was speaking into the telephone. “Hello! Hello! Oh, ’Rome, is that you? How are you?... ’Rome, can you lend us a horse? Felipe’s turned out with a bad foot, and we haven’t a thing for Dean to ride.... Oh, fine,’Rome! Thanks a lot! Bring him over with you Friday morning, will you?” She came back to the table radiant. “’Rome says he’s got just the thing for you; I knew he’d help us out.”
(’Rome Ojeda had heard, as all the countryside had heard, of Ginger’s eastern suitor; it was the chief topic in a land which was ordinarily bare of conversational thrills, but he had taken it quite coolly. He wasn’t, he had been quoted as saying, “worrying none.” Ginger hadn’t given him any thought. He had not, to be sure, telephoned to her or ridden over with congratulations as others had done, but he had been gay and good-natured when they met up on horseback.)
Dean looked at her quizzically. He was beginning, in the last day or two, to look at her with his mind instead of his heart, and he had made several discoveries. One of these was that she was as high-handed and autocratic as a feudal duchess; it was not only that she always wanted and took her own way—she was unaware that there was any other way to want, or to take. But, up to that time, he was not worrying any more than ’Rome Ojeda was. It was picturesque, it was pretty—her high-handedness.
The night before the “big day” she refused to walk or motor or even sit on the veranda, but told him a resolute good night at eight o’clock. “Ling will call you at three, and breakfast’s at three-thirty.”
“We attack at dawn, I see,” said Dean, steering her cleverly into an alcove and out of her aunt’s range of vision. “Then, if my evening is to end at eight instead of ten or eleven, I certainly consider myself entitled to something in the way of recompense.” He swept her into his arms and kissed her.
“Honey,” said Ginger, persuasively, “let me go! And you must get to sleep yourself—we’ve got a big day ahead of us!”
“My dear, I’ve told you several times, though you’ve seemed not to listen to me, that I’m no horseman. I rather think you’d better let me off, to-morrow; it’s highly probable that I’d cut a sorry figure in the saddle.”
Ginger drew back in his arms, wide-eyed. “But you’ll have to ride, Dean! You couldn’t possibly drive the car—we go by trail and straight over the hills—and you couldn’t walk.”
“Why not?”