“There is,” she said, “a curious, breathless flutter all over me; if that is fright, I suppose I’m frightened, but I don’t mind mounting at once—­ if you would put me up——­”

“Better wait a bit,” he said; “it would not do to have that horse feel a fluttering pulse, telegraphing along the snaffle.  Tell me, are you spurred?”

She lifted the hem of her habit; two small spurs glittered on her polished boot heels.

“That’s it, you see,” he observed; “you probably have not ridden cross saddle very long.  When your mount swerved you spurred, and he bolted, bit in teeth.”

“That’s exactly it,” she admitted, looking ruefully at her spurs.  Then she dropped her skirt, glanced interrogatively at him, and, obeying his grave gesture, seated herself again upon the bench.

“Don’t stand,” she said civilly.  He took the other end of the seat, lifting the still slumbering squirrel to his knee.

“I—­I haven’t said very much,” she began; “I’m impulsive enough to be overgrateful and say too much.  I hope you understand me; do you?”

“Of course; you’re very good.  It was nothing; you could have stopped your horse yourself.  People do that sort of thing for one another as a matter of course.”

“But not at the risk you took——­”

“No risk at all,” he said hastily.

She thought otherwise, and thought it so fervently that, afraid of emotion, she turned her cold, white profile to him and studied her horse, haughty lids adroop.  The same insolent sweetness was in her eyes when they again reverted to him.  He knew the look; he had encountered it often enough in the hallway and on the stairs.  He knew, too, that she must recognize him; yet, under the circumstances, it was for her to speak first; and she did not, for she was at that age when horror of overdoing anything chokes back the scarcely extinguished childish instinct to say too much.  In other words, she was eighteen and had had her first season the winter past—­the winter when he had not been visible among the gatherings of his own kind.

[Illustration:  “‘Those squirrels are very tame,’ she observed calmly.”]

“Those squirrels are very tame,” she observed calmly.

“Not always,” he said.  “Try to hold this one, for example.”

She raised her pretty eyebrows, then accepted the lump of fluffy fur from his hands.  Instantly an electric shock seemed to set the squirrel frantic, there was a struggle, a streak of gray and white, and the squirrel leaped from her lap and fairly flew down the asphalt path.

“Gracious!” she exclaimed faintly; “what was the matter?”

“Some squirrels are very wild,” he said innocently.

“I know—­but you held him—­he was asleep on your knee.  Why didn’t he stay with me?”

“Oh, perhaps because I have a way with animals.”