“I feel as if we were escaping from somewhere, and could not tolerate a moment’s delay.”

...At ten o’clock they were in the saddle, and Dunstan was far behind.  The morning, as perfect as ever arose in Northern summer; the azure glorified with golden light, and off to the South, a few shining counterpanes of cloud lay still.  The half had not been told about Beth’s Clarendon, a huge rounded black, with a head slightly Roman, and every movement a pose.  He was skimp of mane and tail; such fine grain does not run to hair.  While there was sanity and breeding in his steady black eye, every look and motion suggested “too much horse” for a woman.  Yet Beth handled him superbly, and from a side-saddle.  Clarendon had in his temper, that gift of show aristocrats—­excess of life, not at all to be confused with wickedness—­which finds in plain outdoors and decent going, plentiful stimulus for top endeavor and hot excitement.

“I’ve had him long,” Beth said, “and though he has sprung from a walk to a trot countless times without a word from me, he has yet to slow down of his own accord.  He can do his twelve miles an hour, and turn around and do it back....  You see how he handles—­for me.”

She delighted in his show qualities, rarely combined with such excellent substance.  She showed his gaits, but rode a trot by preference.  Bedient, who had a good mare, laughed joyously when his mount was forced into a run to keep abreast.  Clarendon, without the slightest show of strain, had settled to his trot....  All Bedient’s thinking and imaging during the years alone, of the woman he should some time find, had never brought him anything so thrilling as this slightly flushed profile of Beth’s now.  What an anchorage of reality she was, after years of dream-stuff—­a crown of discoveries, no less—­and what an honor, her gift of companionship!  He felt an expansion of power, and strength to count this day great with compensation, should the future know only the interminable dull aching of absence and distance.

Bedient had started to speak of the picture, but she bade him wait....  As they rode along a country road, they came to an old ruin of a farm-house, surrounded by huge barns, some new, and all in good repair.  A little beyond was a calf tied to a post.  It was lying down, its legs still being largely experimental—­a pitifully new calf, shapeless and forlorn.

The mother was nowhere around.  Sick in some far meadow, perhaps, sick of making milk for men.

“That’s a veal calf,” Beth said.

The note in her voice called his eyes.  Something which the sight suggested was hateful to her.  Bedient dismounted and led his chestnut mare up to the little thing, which stared, tranced in hope and fear.  The mare dropped her muzzle benignantly.  She understood and became self-conscious and uncomfortable.  One of a group of children near the farmhouse behind them called: 

“Show off!  Show off!”