Twelve o’clock, one o’clock, two o’clock.  Roberta wondered afterward what she had done with the hours!  At three she had her bath; at half after she put up her hair, hardly venturing to look at her own face in her mirror, so flushed and shy was it.  Roberta shy?—­she who, according to Ted, “wasn’t afraid of anything in the world!” But she had been afraid of one thing, even as Richard Kendrick had averred.  Was she not afraid of it now?  She could not tell.  But she knew that her hands shook as she put up her hair, and that it tumbled down twice and had to be done over again.  Afraid!  She was afraid, as every girl worth winning is, of the sight of her lover!

Yet when she heard hoofbeats on the driveway could have kept her from peeping out.  The rear porch, from which the riding party would start, was just below her window, the great pillars rising past her.  She had closed one of her blinds an hour before; she now made use of its sheltering interstices.  She saw Richard on a splendid black horse coming up the drive, looking, as she had foreseen he would look, at home in the saddle and at his best.  She saw the colour in his cheeks, the brightness in his eyes, caught his one quick glance upward—­did he know her window?  He could not possibly see her, but she drew back, happiness and fear fighting within her for the ascendency.  Could she ever go down and face him out there in the strong June light, where he could see every curving hair of eyelash? note the slightest ebb and flow of blood in cheek?

Rosamond was calling:  “Come, Rob!  Mr. Kendrick is here and Joe is bringing round the horses.  Can I help you?”

Roberta opened her door.  “I couldn’t do my hair at all; does it look a fright under this hat?”

Rosamond surveyed her.  “Of course it doesn’t.  You’re the most bewitching thing I ever saw in that blue habit, and your hair is lovely, as it always is.  Rob, I have grown stout; I had to let out two bands before I could get this on; it was made before I was married.  Steve’s been laughing at me.  Here he is; now do let’s hurry.  I want every bit of this good time, don’t you?”

There was no delaying longer.  Rosamond, all eagerness, was leading the way downstairs, her little riding-boots tapping her departure.  Stephen was waiting for Roberta; she had to precede him.  The next she knew she was down and out upon the porch, and Richard Kendrick, hat and crop in hand, was meeting her halfway, his expectant eyes upon her face.  One glance at him was all she was giving him, and he was mercifully making no sign that any one looking on could have recognized beyond his eager scrutiny as his hand clasped hers.  And then in two minutes they were off, and Roberta, feeling the saddle beneath her and Colonel’s familiar tug on the bit at the start-off—­he was always impatient to get away—­was realizing that the worst, at least for the present, was over.

“Which way?” called Stephen, who was leading with Rosamond.