"No ending! We"ll do it every day!" She turned to him suddenly, saying, "Ride now. You mount--I"ll get up behind you."
"What? You"ll be horribly uncomfortable!"
"Who"s thinking of comfort? Rollo can carry us easily. Mount, Grantley, mount! Don"t go straight home. Ride along the cliff. Come, mount, mount!"
She was not to be denied. When he was mounted she set her foot lightly on his, and he helped her up.
"My arm round your waist!" she cried. "Why, I"m splendid here! Gallop, Grantley, gallop! Think somebody"s pursuing us and trying to take me away!"
"Must poor Rollo drop down dead?"
"No, but we"ll pretend he will!"
Now and then he cried something back to her as they rode; but for the most part he knew only her arm about him, the strands of her hair brushing against his cheek as the wind played with them, her short quick breathing behind him. The powerful horse seemed to join in the revel, so strong and easy was his gait as he pulled playfully and tossed his head.
They were alone in the world, and the world was very simple--the perfect delight of the living body, the unhindered union of soul with soul--all nature fostering, inciting, applauding. It was a great return to the earliest things, and nothing lived save those. They rode more than king and queen; they rode G.o.d and G.o.ddess in the youth of the world, descended from High Olympus to take their pleasure on the earth. They rode far and fast against the wind, against it breathlessly. They rode into the gold, and the gold swallowed them up.
The blood was hot in him, and when first he heard her gasp "Stop!" he would pay no heed. He turned the horse"s head towards home, but they went at a gallop still. He felt her head fall against his shoulder. It rested there. Her breath came quicker, faster; he seemed to see her bosom rising and falling in the stress. But he did not stop. Again her voice came, strangled and faint:
"I can"t bear any more. Stop! Stop!"
One more wild rush, and he obeyed. He was quivering all over when they came to a stand. Her hold round him grew loose; she was about to slip down. He turned round in his saddle and caught her about the waist with his arm. He drew her off the horse and forward to his side. He held her thus with his arm, exulting in the struggle of his muscles. He held her close against him and kissed her face. When he let her go and she reached earth, she sank on the ground and covered her face with both hands, all her body shaken with her gasps. He sat on his horse for a moment, looking at her. He drew a deep inspiration, and brushed drops of sweat from his brow. He was surprised to find that there seemed now little wind, that the sun was veiled in clouds, that a waggon pa.s.sed along the road, that a dog barked from a farmhouse, that the old ordinary humdrum world was there.
He heard a short stifled sob.
"You"re not angry with me?" he said. "I wasn"t rough to you? I couldn"t bear to stop at first."
She showed him her face. Her eyes were full of tears; there was a deep glow on her cheeks, generally so pale. She sprang to her feet and stood by his horse, looking up at him.
"I angry? You rough? It has been more than I knew happiness could be. I had no idea joy could be like that, no idea life had anything like that.
And you ask me if I"m angry and if you were rough! You"re opening life to me, showing me why it is good, why I have it, why I want it, what I"m to do with it. You"re opening it all to me. And all the beauties come out of your dear hand, Grantley. Angry! I know only that you"re doing this for me, only that I must give you in return, in a poor return, all I have and am and can be--must give you my very, very self."
He was in a momentary reaction of feeling; his earnestness was almost sombre as he answered:
"G.o.d grant you"re doing right!"
"I"m doing what I must do, Grantley."
He swung himself off his horse, and the ready smile came to his face.
"I hope you"ll find the necessity a permanent one," he said.
She too laughed joyfully as she submitted to his kiss.
It was her whim, urged with the mock imperiousness of a petted slave, that he should mount again, and she walk by his horse. Thus they wended their way home through the peace of the evening. She talked now of how he had first come into her life, of how she had begun to---- She hesitated, ending, "How I began first to feel you----" and of how, little by little, the knowledge of the feeling had disclosed itself. She was wonderfully open and simple, very direct and unabashed; yet there was nothing that even his fastidious and much-tested taste found indelicate or even forward. In glad confidence she told all, careless of keeping any secrets or any defences against him. The seed had quickened in virgin soil, and the flower had sprung up in a night--almost by magic, she seemed to fancy. He listened tenderly and indulgently. The flame of his emotion had burnt down, but there was an after-glow which made him delightfully content with her, interested and delighted in her, still more thoroughly satisfied with what he had done, even more glad that she was different from all the others with whom he had been thrown.
While she displayed to him at once the joy and the spontaneity of her abandonment of her whole existence and self to him, she made him surer of his wisdom in taking her and all she offered, more convinced of the excellence of this disposition of his life. She could give him all he pictured as desirable--the stretches of tranquillity, the moments of strong feeling. She had it in her to give both, and she would give all she had to give. In return he gave her his love. No a.n.a.lysis seemed needful there. He gave her the love of his heart and the shelter of his arm; what more he could give her the afternoon had shown. But in the end it was all contained and summed up in a word--he gave his love.
They came to the crest of the hill where the road dipped down to Milldean, and paused there.
"What a wonderful afternoon it"s been!" she sighed.
The enchantment of it hung about her still, expressing itself in the gleam of her eyes and in her restlessness.
"It"s been a very delightful one," he leaned down and whispered to her.
"It"s given us something to look back on always."
"Yes, a great thing to look back on. But even more to look forward to.
It"s told us what life is going to be, Grantley. And to think that life used to mean only that!"
She waved her hand towards Milldean.
Grantley laughed in sheer enjoyment of her. Amus.e.m.e.nt mingled with his admiration. His balance had quite come back to him. A review of the afternoon, of their wild ride, made him give part of his amus.e.m.e.nt to his own share in the proceedings. But who expects a man, or need expect himself, to be wise when he is in love? If there be a chartered season for sweet folly, it is there.
"Can we always be careering over the downs in the teeth of the wind, riding into the gold, Sibylla?" he asked her in affectionate mockery.
She looked up at him, answering simply:
"Why not?"
He shook his head with a whimsical smile.
"Whatever else there is, our hearts can be riding together still."
"And when we"re old folks? Isn"t it only the young who can ride like that?"
She stood silent for a moment or two. Then she turned her eyes up to his in silence still, with the colour shining bright on her cheeks. She took his hand and kissed it. He knew the thought that his words had called into her mind. He had made the girl think that, when they were old, the world would not be; there would be young hearts still to ride, young hearts in whom their hearts should be carried still in the glorious gallop, young hearts which had drawn life from them.
They parted at the gate of Old Mill House. Grantley urged her to come up to his house in the evening and bring Jeremy with her, and laughed again when she said, "Bring Jeremy?" She was confused at the hint in his laughter, but she laughed too. Then growing grave, she went on:
"No, I won"t come to-night. I won"t see you again to-night. I want to realise it, to think it all over."
"Is it so complicated as that? You"re looking very serious!"
She broke into a fresh laugh, a laugh of joyful confession.
"No, I don"t want to think it over. I really want to live it over, to live it over alone, many, many times. To be alone with you again up on the downs there."
"Very well. Send Jeremy up. By now he must be dying for an argument; and he"s probably not on speaking terms with Mrs. Mumple."
He gave her his hand; any warmer farewell there in the village street was quite against his ways and notions. He observed a questioning look in her eyes, but it did not occur to him that she was rather surprised at his wanting Jeremy to come up after dinner. She did not propose to spend any time with Jeremy.
"I"ll tell him you want him," she said; and added in a whisper, "Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!"
He walked his horse up the hill, looking back once or twice to the gate where she stood watching him till a turn of the lane hid him from her sight. When that happened, he sighed in luxurious contentment, and took a cigarette from his case.
To her the afternoon had been a wonder-working revelation; to him it seemed an extremely delightful episode.