Jean shook the bridle of her horse, and calling back over her shoulder, “Shall we run them?” was off in a flash. Stephen, urging on his pony, soon caught up with her, and side by side they galloped hard up the valley. Leaning forward in his saddle, he could watch the rich color rush across the girl’s face, as the speed set her blood dancing. Her head was tossed backward, throwing out the clean molded chin, and perhaps emphasizing the hint of obstinacy concealed in its rounded finish. Her bridle hand lay close on the horse’s neck, the small gloved fingers crushing the reins. From the amount of attention that Loring was, or rather was not, paying to his horse, he richly deserved a fall; but the fates spared him. Perhaps they, too, were engaged in watching the girl.
With a sigh, Jean pulled her horse down to walk.
“That was splendid! Why can’t one always be riding like that?”
Loring looked at her, amused by the exuberance of her spirits.
“A bit hard on the horses as a perpetual thing, otherwise perfect,” he answered.
She turned to him suddenly. “Have you no enthusiasms?”
“I used to have,” answered Stephen, “but they were not of exactly the right kind. In fact they made me what I am.”
“What are you?” she asked, looking at him directly.
“A failure—and rather worse, because I am a poor failure. There is just enough left in me to make me realize the truth, but not enough to compel me to do anything about it.”
Jean thought for a minute, then, with sincere pity in her face, she asked, “Why?”
Stephen had resolved never to speak of his past, of the golden opportunities lost, of the friends who would have helped if they could; but as he looked at her, at the slightly parted lips, at the frank sympathy that shone from her face, he knew that here was some one who could understand and perhaps help.
Slowly at first, controlling the breaks in his voice, then more evenly, he told her of start after start, of the relatives who had disowned him, of drifting and drifting. “Now, here I am, running a hoist! Well, it is probably the best thing of which I am capable and I owe it to you and your father that I have so good a place. I have been tried and found wanting in almost every way the Lord could invent, and,” he tried rather unsuccessfully to smile, “I think I am down and out.”