"When grandfather died," she said, "he wouldn't eat for two days. He saw
him die, you know."
"Was that old Uncle Jolyon? Mother always says he was a topper."
"He was," said Holly simply, and opened the stable door.
In a loose-box stood a silver roan of about fifteen hands, with a long
black tail and mane. "This is mine--Fairy."
"Ah!" said Val, "she's a jolly palfrey. But you ought to bang her tail.
She'd look much smarter." Then catching her wondering look, he thought
suddenly: 'I don't know--anything she likes!' And he took a long sniff
of the stable air. "Horses are ripping, aren't they? My Dad..." he
stopped.
"Yes?" said Holly.
An impulse to unbosom himself almost overcame him--but not quite. "Oh!
I don't know he's often gone a mucker over them. I'm jolly keen on them
too--riding and hunting. I like racing awfully, as well; I should like
to be a gentleman rider." And oblivious of the fact that he had but one
more day in town, with two engagements, he plumped out:
"I say, if I hire a gee to-morrow, will you come a ride in Richmond
Park?"
Holly clasped her hands.
"Oh yes! I simply love riding. But there's Jolly's horse; why don't you
ride him? Here he is. We could go after tea."
Val looked doubtfully at his trousered legs.
He had imagined them immaculate before her eyes in high brown boots and
Bedford cords.
"I don't much like riding his horse," he said. "He mightn't like it.
Besides, Uncle Soames wants to get back, I expect. Not that I believe
in buckling under to him, you know. You haven't got an uncle, have you?
This is rather a good beast," he added, scrutinising Jolly's horse, a
dark brown, which was showing the whites of its eyes. "You haven't got
any hunting here, I suppose?"
"No; I don't know that I want to hunt. It must be awfully exciting, of
course; but it's cruel, isn't it? June says so."
"Cruel?" ejaculated Val. "Oh! that's all rot. Who's June?"
"My sister--my half-sister, you know--much older than me." She had put
her hands up to both cheeks of Jolly's horse, and was rubbing her nose
against its nose with a gentle snuffling noise which seemed to have
an hypnotic effect on the animal. Val contemplated her cheek resting
against the horse's nose, and her eyes gleaming round at him. 'She's
really a duck,' he thought.
They returned to the house less talkative, followed this time by the
dog Balthasar, walking more slowly than anything on earth, and clearly
expecting them not to exceed his speed limit.