She looked sideways at him with critical meditation tenderly rendered.
“Do I seem like LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI?” she began suddenly, without replying to his question. “Fancy yourself saying, Mr. Smith:
‘I sat her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy’s song,
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;’
and that’s all she did.”
“No, no,” said the young man stilly, and with a rising colour.
“‘And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.’”
“Not at all,” she rejoined quickly. “See how I can gallop. Now, Pansy, off!” And Elfride started; and Stephen beheld her light figure contracting to the dimensions of a bird as she sank into the distance—her hair flowing.
He walked on in the same direction, and for a considerable time could see no signs of her returning. Dull as a flower without the sun he sat down upon a stone, and not for fifteen minutes was any sound of horse or rider to be heard. Then Elfride and Pansy appeared on the hill in a round trot.
“Such a delightful scamper as we have had!” she said, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling. She turned the horse’s head, Stephen arose, and they went on again.
“Well, what have you to say to me, Mr. Smith, after my long absence?”