The vast hall had high and narrow double doors to admit the horses; and inside, beneath the dirty glass roof, it was always twilight, with strange echoes and reverberations issuing from the smooth plastered walls; at a considerable height in one of the walls there was a large window, opening out of a room that looked like the royal box of a theatre.
This hall had been the military school; it remained as a last evidence of the demolished barracks, and the town was proud of its noble dimensions—a building worthy of the metropolis.
"How d'ye do," said the riding-master, a slim, tall, elegant young man in check breeches and black boots. "Come and stand by us in the middle."
There was another tall young man, who wore drab breeches and brown gaiters on his long thin legs, and who was helping a stableman to drag the barred hurdle across the tan and put it in position against the wall.
"Now, Miss Thompson.... Steady. Steady. Let her go."
Enid on a heavily bandaged bay mare came slowly round, advanced in a scrambling canter, and hopped over the low obstacle.
"Very good."
She looked charming as she came round again—her usually cold pale face now warm and red, a wisp of her dark hair flying, the short habit showing her neatly booted legs.
"Very good."
"I am lost in admiration," said Marsden; and the strange young man stared hard at him.