should have shielded her from all calumny.
It was only a mean desire to retaliate, a petty and ignoble spite, that prompted me thus to poison Brutus's confidence, and I regretted the words as soon as I had uttered them.
'That beast!' he said, starting as if I had touched him with a whip – a thing I never used – 'why, he hasn't two ideas in his great fiddle-head. The only sort of officer he ought to carry is a Salvationist!'
'I grant he has not your personal advantages and charm of manner,' I said. 'No doubt I was wrong to say anything about it.'
'No,' he said, 'you – you have done me a service,' and he relapsed into a sombre silence.
I was riding with Diana as usual, and was about to express my delight at being able to resume our companionship, when her mare drew slightly ahead and lashed out suddenly, catching me on the left leg, and causing intense agony for the moment.
Diana showed the sweetest concern, imploring me to go home in a cab at once, while her groom took charge of Brutus. I declined the cab; but, as my leg was really painful, and Brutus was showing an impatience I dared not disregard, I had to leave her side.
On our way home, Brutus said moodily, 'It is all over between us – you saw that?'
'I felt it!' I replied. 'She nearly broke my leg.'
'It was intended for me,' he said. 'It was her way of signifying that we had better be strangers for the future. I taxed her with her faithlessness; she denied it, of course – every mare does; we had an explanation, and everything is at an end!'
I did not ride him again for some days, and when I did, I found him steeped in Byronic gloom. He even wanted at first to keep entirely on the Bayswater side of the Park, though I succeeded in arguing him out of such weakness. 'Be a horse!' I said. 'Show her you don't care. You only flatter her by betraying your feelings.'
This was a subtlety that had evidently not occurred to him, but he was intelligent enough to feel the force of what I said. 'You are right,' he admitted; 'you are not quite a fool in some respects. She shall see how little I care!'
Naturally, after this, I expected to accompany Diana as usual, and it was a bitter disappointment to me to find that Brutus would not hear of doing so. He had an old acquaintance in the Park, a dapple-grey, who, probably from some early disappointment was a confirmed cynic, and whose society he thought would be congenial just then. The grey was ridden regularly by a certain Miss Gittens, whose appearance as she titupped laboriously up and down had often furnished Diana and myself with amusement.
And now, in spite of all my efforts, Brutus made straight to the grey. I was not in such difficulties as might have been expected, for I happened to know Miss Gittens slightly, as a lady no longer in the bloom of youth, who still retained a wiry form of girlishness. Though rather disliking her than not, I found it necessary just then to throw some slight effusion into my greeting. She, not unnaturally perhaps, was flattered by my preference, and begged me to give her a little instruction in riding, which – Heaven forgive me for it! – I took upon myself to do.
Even now I scarcely see how I could have acted otherwise: I could not leave her side until Brutus had exhausted the pleasures of cynicism with his grey friend, and the time had to be filled up somehow. But, oh, the torture of seeing Diana at a distance, and knowing that only a miserable misunderstanding between our respective steeds kept us apart, feeling constrained even to avoid looking in her direction, lest she should summon me to her side!
One day, as I was riding with Miss Gittens, she glanced coyly at me over her sharp right shoulder, and said, 'Do you know, only such a little while ago, I never even dreamed that we should ever become as intimate as we are now; it seems almost incredible, does it not?'
'You must not say so,' I replied. 'Surely there is nothing singular in my helping you a little with your riding?' Though it struck me that it would have been very singular if I had.
'Perhaps not singular,' she murmured, looking modestly down her nose; 'but will you think me very unmaidenly if I confess that, to me, those lessons have developed a dawning danger?'
'You are perfectly safe on the grey,' I said.
'I – I was not thinking of the grey,' she returned. 'Dear Mr. Pulvertoft, I must speak frankly – a girl has so many things to consider, and I am afraid you have made me forget how wrongly and thoughtlessly I have been behaving of late. I cannot help suspecting that you must have some motive in seeking my society in so – so marked a manner.'
'Miss Gittens,' said I, 'I can disguise nothing: I have.'
'And you have not been merely amusing yourself all this time?'
'Before Heaven,' I cried with fervour, 'I have not!'
'You are not one of those false men who give their bridle-reins a shake, and ride off with "Adieu for evermore!" – tell me you are not?'
I might shake my bridle-reins till I was tired and nothing would come of it unless Brutus was in the humour to depart; so that I was able to assure her with truth that I was not at all that kind of person.
'Then why not let your heart speak?'
'There is such a thing,' I said gloomily, 'as a heart that is gagged.'
'Can no word, no hint of mine loosen the gag?' she wished to know. 'What, you are silent still? Then, Mr. Pulvertoft, though I may seem harsh and cruel in saying it, our pleasant intercourse must end – we must ride together no more!'
No more? What would Brutus say to that? I was horrified. 'Miss Gittens,' I said in great agitation, 'I entreat you to unsay those words. I – I am afraid I could not undertake to accept such a dismissal. Surely, after that, you will not insist!'
She sighed. 'I am a weak, foolish girl,' she said; 'you are only too able to overcome my judgment. There, Mr. Pulvertoft, look happy again – I relent. You may stay if you will!'
You must believe that I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself, for I could not be blind to the encouragement which, though I sought to confine my words to strict truth, I was innocently affording. But, with a horse like mine, what was a man to do? What would you have done yourself? As soon as was prudent, I hinted to Brutus that his confidences had lasted long enough; and as he trotted away with me, he remarked, 'I thought you were never going.' Was he weary of the grey already? My heart leaped. 'Brutus,' I said thickly, 'are you strong enough to bear a great joy?'
'Speak out,' he said, 'and do try to keep those heels out of my ribs.'
'I cannot see you suffer,' I told him, with a sense of my own hypocrisy all the time. 'I must tell you – circumstances have come to my knowledge which lead me to believe that we have both judged Wild Rose too hastily. I am sure that her heart is yours still. She is only longing to tell you that she has never really swerved from her allegiance.'
'It is too late now,' he said, and the back of his head looked inflexibly obstinate; 'we have kept asunder too long.'
'No,' I said, 'listen. I take more interest in you than you are, perhaps, aware of, and I have thought of a little plan for bringing you together again. What if I find an opportunity to see the lady she belongs to – we have not met lately, as you know, and I do not pretend that I desire a renewal of our intimacy – '
'You like the one on the grey best; I saw that long ago,' he said; and I left him in his error.
'In any case, for your sake, I will sacrifice myself,' I said magnanimously.
