He rose as he spoke and left the room with a quicker step than usual.
But half an hour later when Ida went into the library she found him
absorbed in his books as usual, and he only glanced up at her with
absent, unseeing eyes, as she stood beside him putting on her gloves,
her habit skirt caught up under her elbow, the old felt hat just a
little askew on the soft, silky hair.
"Do you want anything before I go out, father?" she asked.
"No, no!" he replied abstractedly, and bending over his book again as
he answered. Ida crossed the hall in the sunlight, which lit up her
beauty and made it seem a more striking contrast than usual to the dull
and grim surroundings of the dark oak, the faded hangings and the
lack-lustre armour, and Donald and Bess bounded, barking, before her
down the terrace at which Jason was holding thy big chestnut. The horse
pricked up its ears and turned its head for her morning caress, the
touch of the small, soft, but firm hand which it had come to regard as
its due, and Ida sprang lightly from the last step into the saddle. It
was an informal way of mounting which few girls could have accomplished
gracefully; but Ida did it as naturally and as easily as a circus
rider, for the trick was a necessity to her who had so often to
dismount and mount alone.
The lovely face was rather grave and thoughtful for some time after she
had started, for the remembrance of last night weighed upon her, and
her father's unusual display of anger at breakfast troubled her
vaguely; but, presently, after she had cleared a hedge and one of the
broken rails, her spirits rose: the sky was so blue, the sun so bright;
it was hard to be depressed on such a morning.
She rode to a distant part of the dale where, in a rough meadow the
steers were grazing; she surveyed them critically, chose those that
should go to market, then turned, and leaping a bank, gained an
ill-kept road. A little farther on she came to an opening on the verge
of the lake, and she pulled up, arrested by the great white house on
the other side, which was literally glittering in the brilliant
sunlight. It certainly did not detract from the beauty of the view; in
fact, it made the English lake look, for the moment, like an Italian
one.
She regarded it thoughtfully for a moment, then returned to the road,
and as she did so she saw a tall figure coming towards her.