There was something in the girl's face at that moment so vital, so bizarre and arresting, that so long as Rupert Guest lived, it remained with him as one of the most striking pictures in his mental picture- gallery. He had but to pass a high green hedge in the June sunshine, to catch the fragrance of the honeysuckle and roses, and it rose up before him again--the white, furious face, with the red, roughened locks, and the gleam of white teeth through the scarlet lips. There was no admiration in his thoughts; this was not at all the type of girl whom he admired, but she was a being by herself, different from anyone whom he had met. He stared at her with curious attention. "Do you mean," said Cornelia, in the slow, even tones of intense anger, "that you think this was my doing--that I upset the cart by my bad driving? If that's so, you are a little out in your reckoning. If I hadn't been used to horses all my days we might have been in kingdom come by this time. I _pulled_ her into the bank before worse things happened!" "Then what sent her off in the first instance?" "A poll parrot, screeching in its cage, set right out in the roadway by some fool owner, who ought to be had up for murder." The stranger pursed up his lips in an expressive whistle, then suddenly sprang upwards as the mare, freed from her harness, rolled on her side and struggled to her feet, where she stood shivering and tossing her head, displaying fresh cuts and bruises in her dusty coat. The labourer put his hand on her neck, soothing her with gentle words and touches, while his master surveyed her with kindly concern. "Poor brute! Better take her to the stables, James, and send off for a vet. Mrs Greville can no doubt spare a carriage to take these ladies home." He turned towards Cornelia with an impulse of provocation which seemed to spring from some source outside himself. As a rule he was chivalrous where women were concerned, but there was something in the personality of this girl which aroused his antagonism. It seemed almost a personal offence that she should be so alert and composed while the mare bled and trembled, and that pale, lovely thing lay like a broken snowdrop on the bank. He felt a growing desire to annoy, to wound, to break down this armour of complacent vanity. "So you could not hold her till she tired herself out? Well! the experiment seems to have answered less successfully from her point of view than your own. She'll need a considerable time to recover her nerves and give these scratches time to heal." "Skin deep!" sneered Cornelia, with a curl of the lip. "I'll drive her back in a day or two; and up and down this road until she learns not to play that trick again. I've never given in to a horse yet, and I'm not going to begin with a hack mare!" The stranger eyed her with cold disapproval.