Constance laughed.  The laugh, though very musical, was sarcastic.

“I don’t see you as a shuttlecock!”

“Tossed by the winds of fate?  You think I can always make myself do what I wish?”

“That’s how I read you—­at present.”

’Hm—­a charming character!  Everything calculated—­nothing spontaneous.  That I think is what you mean?”

“No.  But I doubt your being carried away.”

He flushed hotly.

“Lady Connie!—­”

He paused.  Her colour rushed too.  She saw what he was thinking of; she perceived her blunder.

“For what else did you castigate me at Cannes?” he said, in a low voice.  And his black eyes looked passionately into hers.  But she recovered herself quickly.

“At any rate, you have more will than most people,” she said lightly.  “Aren’t you always boasting of it?  But you are quite right to go away.”

“I am not going for a week,” he put in quickly.  “There will be time for two more rides.”

She made no reply, and they paced on.  Suddenly the trees began to thin before them, and a splendid wave of colour swept across an open glade in full sunlight.

“Marvellous!” cried Constance.  “Oh, stop a moment!”

They pulled up on the brink of a sea of blue.  All around them the bluebells lay glowing in the sunshine.  The colour and sparkle of them was a physical delight; and with occasional lingering tufts of primroses among them and the young oak scrub pushing up through the blue in every shade of gold and bronze, they made an enchanted garden of the glade.

Falloden dismounted, tied up his horse, and gathered a bunch for his companion.

“I don’t know—­ought we?” she said regretfully.  “They are not so beautiful when they are torn away.  And in a week they will be gone—­withered!”

She stooped over them, caressing them, as, taking a strap from the pocket of his own saddle, he tied the flowers to her pommel.

He looked up impetuously.

“Only to spring again!—­in this same wood—­in other woods—­for us to see.  Do you ever think how full the world is of sheer pleasure—­small and great?” And his eyes told her plainly what his pleasure was at that moment.

Something jarred.  She drew herself away, though with fluttering pulses.  Falloden, with a strong effort, checked the tide of impulse in himself.  He mounted again, and suggested a gallop, through a long stretch of green road on the further side of the glade.  They let their horses go, and the flying hoof-beats woke the very heart of the wood.

“That was good!” cried Falloden, as they pulled up, drawing in deep draughts of the summer wind.  Then he looked at her admiringly.

“How well you hold yourself!  You are a perfect rider!”

Against her will Constance sparkled under his praise.  Then they turned their horses towards the keeper’s cottage, and the sun fell lower in the west.