“Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone, and palely loitering?”
And when he had no poetry ready to reply, she grew tired of him altogether, and touched her horse and cantered quickly on. Let him follow her if he chose—what mattered it! Moreover, she rode well, and men always noticed it; she was bare-headed, and no man ever saw the golden glory of her hair in bright sunlight that his heart did not begin to quiver within him!
After a while he spurred his horse and rode at her side, and without looking, she saw that he was watching her. She gave him just a little smile, absent-minded and barely polite. Resolving to punish him still more, she asked him the time. He gravely drew out his watch and replied to her question. “I will ride as far as the spring,” she said. “Then I must be going back.”
But he did not make the expected protest. He was going to lose her, and he did not care! Oh, what a man!
As they drew near the spring, Sylvia began to be uneasy again. She did not want him to lose her; she wanted him to care. She stopped to breathe her horse, and to look at the moss-ringed pool of water, and at the field of golden-rod beyond. “How lovely!” she said; and repeated, “How lovely!” He never said a word—and when he might so easily have said, “Let us stay a while!”
She was growing desperate. Her horse had got its breath and had had some water—what else? “I must have some of that golden-rod!” she exclaimed, suddenly. What was the matter with him, staring into space in that fashion? Had he no manners at all? “I must have some golden-rod,” she repeated; and when he still made no move, she said, “Hold my horse, please,” and started to dismount.
He sprang off, and took the reins of her horse, and those of his own in the same hand, giving his other hand to her. It was the first time he had touched her, and it sent a shock through her that sent her flying in a panic—out into the field of flowers, where she could hide her cheeks and her trembling!
§ 16
He made the horses fast to the fence, carefully and deliberately; and meantime she was gathering golden-rod. She knew that she made a picture in the midst of flowers. She was very much occupied as he came to her side.