"What a magnificent animal!" he thought. Then, under his breath, he added, "and what a stunning rider!"
She was only a girl—about eighteen or nineteen, he should judge by her figure and the girlish poise of her small head—but she certainly knew how to ride. She sat her horse as though a part of him, and controlled his every motion as she would her own.
"Just that way might she manage a man," Paul thought, and then laughed aloud at the absurdity of the thought. For he had never seen the girl before.
Paul admired a good horsewoman—they are so pitifully few. And he followed her, at a safe distance, with an interest unaccountable, even to him. Finally she drew rein before one of the houses facing the Row, dismounted, and throwing the train of her habit gracefully over her arm, walked to the door with a brisk step. Paul instantly likened her to a bird, so lightly tripping over the walk that her feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground. She was a wee thing—certainly not more than five foot tall—and petite, almost to an extreme. The Boy had expressed a preference, only a few days before, for tall, magnificent women. Now he suddenly discovered that the woman for a man to love should by all means be short and small. He wondered why it had never occurred to him in that light before, and thought of Jacques' question about Rosalind, "What stature is she of?" and Orlando's reply, "As high as my heart!"
The girl who had aroused this train of thought had reached the big stone steps by this time, and suddenly turning to look over her shoulder, just as he passed the gate, met his gaze squarely. Gad! what eyes those were!—full of mystery and magnetism, and—possibilities!
For an instant their eyes clung together in that strange mingling of glances that sometimes holds even utter strangers spellbound by its compelling force.
Then she turned and entered the house, and Paul rode on.
But that glance went with him. It tormented him, troubled him, perplexed him. He felt a mad desire to turn back, to follow her into that house, and compel her to meet his eyes again. Did she know the power of her own eyes? Did she know a look like that had almost the force of a caress?
He told himself that they were the most beautiful eyes that he had ever seen—and yet he could not have told the color of them to save his soul. He began to wonder about that. It vexed him that he could not remember.
"Eyes!" he thought, "those are not eyes! They are living magnets, drawing a fellow on and on, and he never stops to think what color they are—nor care!"