which were full and of a soft brilliance, under thick chestnut lashes, explored her all over.  Perceiving that her carrots were not in front, he elongated his neck, let his nose stray round her waist, and gave her gauntletted hand a nip with his lips.  Not tasting carrot, he withdrew his nose, and snuffled.  Then stepping carefully so as not to tread on her foot, he bunted her gently with his shoulder, till with a quick manoeuvre he got behind her and breathed low and long on her neck.  Even this did not smell of carrots, and putting his muzzle over her shoulder against her cheek, he slobbered a very little.  A carrot appeared about the level of her waist, and hanging his head over, he tried to reach it.  Feeling it all firm and soft under his chin, he snuffled again, and gave her a gentle dig with his knee.  But still unable to reach the carrot, he threw his head up, withdrew, and pretended not to see her.  And suddenly he felt two long substances round his neck, and something soft against his nose.  He suffered this in silence, laying his ears back.  The softness began puffing on his muzzle.  Pricking his ears again, he puffed back a little harder, with more curiosity, and the softness was withdrawn.  He perceived suddenly that he had a carrot in his mouth.

Harbinger had witnessed this episode, oddly pale, leaning against the loose-box wall.  He spoke, as it came to an end: 

“Lady Babs!”

The tone of his voice must have been as strange as it sounded to himself, for Barbara spun round.

“Yes?”

“How long am I going on like this?”

Neither changing colour nor dropping her eyes, she regarded him with a faintly inquisitive interest.  It was not a cruel look, had not a trace of mischief, or sex malice, and yet it frightened him by its serene inscrutability.  Impossible to tell what was going on behind it.  He took her hand, bent over it, and said in a low voice: 

“You know what I feel; don’t be cruel to me!”

She did not pull away her hand; it was as if she had not thought of it.

“I am not a bit cruel.”

Looking up, he saw her smiling.

“Then—­Babs!”

His face was close to hers, but Barbara did not shrink back.  She just shook her head; and Harbinger flushed up.

“Why?” he asked; and as though the enormous injustice of that rejecting gesture had suddenly struck him, he dropped her hand.

“Why?” he said again, sharply.

But the silence was only broken by the cheeping of sparrows outside the round window, and the sound of the horse, Hal, munching the last morsel of his carrot.  Harbinger was aware in his every nerve of the sweetish, slightly acrid, husky odour of the loosebox, mingling with the scent of Barbara’s hair and clothes.  And rather miserably, he said for the third time: 

“Why?”

But folding her hands away behind her back she answered gently: