His horse paced now beside hers, and, riding with his beautifully light hands, he restrained its paces to suit her pony’s, all with that air of chivalrous deference which she found so subtly irritating. It conveyed that she was not able to take care of herself, but that he must do it for her, in a playful, tactful way, while allowing her apparent liberty, and she felt now that he had taken her away from the games as he might have taken a little girl. It made her inclined to start her pony off into a gallop, but she reproved herself, remembering that Mr. Calladine was very much older than she was,--he must be quite fifty,--and that it was kind and condescending of one so fine and cultured to desire her company. At the same time, she could not help contrasting his manner with Lovel’s; Lovel was often brusque and even rude to her; he lost his temper with her sometimes, and never apologised afterwards; it was all the more insolent in Lovel, for he was not the gentleman that Calladine was. But she never felt with him the sense of strain that she felt with Calladine. It seemed to her as natural to meet Lovel upon the Downs as it would have been to meet a flock of sheep, and it never occurred to her either to mention or to conceal the fact to her father. Calladine, on the other hand,--she knew that when she got home, some obscure instinct would impel her to say, “Father, I rode with Mr. Calladine.” They had allowed their horses to follow their own course, which in that open country was possible for miles, and Clare now perceived that they were being carried in the direction of a group of Grey Wethers. She did not at all want to go to these particular Grey Wethers with Calladine; but when she tried to head her pony away he immediately said, “Do let us ride on as far as the Grey Wethers, Miss Clare. We have never been there together, and I have a fancy to go there with you.” Clare gave way; it was not worth hurting his feelings, perhaps, for a whim. They rode on accordingly until they came to the strange derelict stones, where, at Calladine’s instigation, they got off their horses and sat down side by side on one of the stones. Clare wondered what the object of this pause could be; then, looking at Calladine, she saw that he was nervously twisting his fingers together, and appeared by the agitation of his manner to have something on his mind which he was trying to say. She was not much surprised; she had often seen him break out under the influence of some unexplained emotion, and waited quietly for what was to come. She was not much interested either; but if it did him good to speak, then, poor man, by all means let him speak his fill. Finally, she prompted him, almost with mischief, “You seem full of disturbing thoughts, Mr. Calladine?”