“Then,” she said, laughing, “reach under the saddle-cloth and get out my ring. I might lose it.”
Bewildered, he got the ring, and understanding at last, laughed with her. “And now,” cried Sylvia, in her friendliest tone of voice, “get on your horse again and behave like a man of enterprise! Come!” She touched her mount and went galloping; she heard him pounding away behind her, and she began to sing:
“Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day,
All the jolly chase is near
With hawk and hound and hunting-spear!”
§ 14
They were good comrades now; all their problems solved, and a stirrup-cup of happiness to quaff between them. Sylvia was amazed at herself—the surge of exultation which arose in her and swept her along upon its crest. Never in all her life had she been as full of verve and animation as she was throughout that ride. She laughed, she sang, she poured out a stream of fantasy; and all the while the clatter of the horses hoofs—romance blending itself with reality!
But also she was studying the man. There was something in her which must always be studying people. Thank Heaven, he was a man who could forget himself, and laugh and be good fun! It was something to have got him out of his melancholy, and set him to galloping here—admiring her, marveling at her! She felt his admiration like a storm of wind pushing her along.
At last she drew up, breathless. “Dear me,” she exclaimed, “what a lot of chattering I have done! And we must be—how many miles from home?”