Can't you recollect how I cried, when you sang it in the
billiard-room, and Uncle Geoffrey gave you the half-sovereign which had
been promised to me?"
"No," said Winston, a trifle hoarsely, and with his head turned from
her watched the trail.
A man in embroidered deerskin jacket was riding into the moonlight, and
though the little song had ceased, and the wide hat hid his face, there
was an almost insolent gracefulness in his carriage that seemed
familiar to Winston. It was not the _abandon_ of the swashbuckler
stock-rider from across the frontier, but something more finished and
distinguished that suggested the bygone cavalier. Maud Barrington, it
was evident, also noticed it.
"Geoffrey Courthorne rode as that man does," she said. "I remember
hearing my mother once tell him that he had been born too late, because
his attributes and tastes would have fitted him to follow Prince
Rupert."
Winston made no answer, and the man rode on until he drew bridle in
front of them. Then he swung his hat off, and while the moonlight
shone into his face looked down with a little ironical smile at the man
and woman standing beside the horse. Winston closed one hand a trifle,
and slowly straightened himself, feeling that there was need of all his
self-control, for he saw his companion glance at him, and then almost
too steadily at Lance Courthorne.
The latter said nothing for a space of seconds, for which Winston hated
him, and yet in the tension of the suspense he noticed that the signs
of indulgence he had seen on the last occasion were plainer in
Courthorne's face.
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