Théodore urged his horse to a gallop and diminished the distance between him and Rosette, but did not join her.
He continued to look back at the château, which they were beginning to lose sight of; a little cloud of dust, in the centre of which something that they could not as yet distinguish was moving very rapidly, appeared at the end of the road. In a few moments the cloud reached Théodore's side, and, opening like the classic clouds of the Iliad, disclosed the fresh and rosy face of the mysterious page.
"Come, Théodore, come!" cried Rosette again; "give your tortoise the spur and join us."
Théodore gave his horse the rein, and in a second, the animal, who was pawing and rearing impatiently, had passed D'Albert and Rosette by several lengths.
"Who loves me follows me," said Théodore, leaping a fence four feet high. "Well, well, Monsieur le Poète," he said, when he was on the other side, "you don't jump? but they say your steed has wings."
"Faith, I prefer to ride around; I have only one head to break after all; if I had several I would try," D'Albert replied with a smile.
"No one loves me then, as no one follows me," said Théodore, bringing the arched corners of his mouth even lower than usual. The little page looked up at him reproachfully with his great blue eyes, and drove his heels into his horse's sides.
The horse gave a tremendous leap.
"Yes! some one," said the child from the other side of the fence.
Rosette cast a strange glance at the boy and blushed up to her eyes; then, with a furious blow of the crop on the mare's neck, she leaped the barrier of green apple wood that barred the path.