“Lean on me, Philip.”
“No, no, I can walk.”
“Do take my arm.”
“Oh no, Kate, I'm strong enough.”
“Just to please me.”
“Well—very well.”
Ross looked on with jealous rage. His horse, frightened by the fight, had twirled round and round till the reins were twisted into a knot about the gorse stump, and as he liberated the beast he flogged it back till it flew around him. Then he vaulted to the saddle, tugged at the curb, and the horse reared. “Down,” he cried with an oath, and lashed brutally at the horse's head.
Meantime Kate, going past him with Philip on her arm, was saying softly, “Are you feeling better, Philip?”
And Ross, looking on in sulky meditation, sent a harsh laugh out of his hot throat, and said, “Oh, you can make your mind easy about him, if your other man fights for you like that you'll do. Thought you'd have three of them, did you? Or perhaps you only wanted me for your decoy? Why don't you kiss him now, when he can know it? But he's a beauty to take care of you for somebody else. Fighting for the other one, eh? Stuff and humbug! Take him home, and the curse of Judas on the brace of you.”
So saying, he burst into wild, derisive laughter, flogged his horse on the ears and the nose, shouted “Down, you brute, down!” and shot off at a gallop across the open Curragh.