If they were to make a walking match of it, at least they were not to be philanderers, they were not going out only as far as the first heather, there to sit together in a solitude that might spell danger. And she announced spirit to a man who would (she knew) appreciate it, she declared that if her inches were few they had vigor, that if she had ladyhood it was skin-deep, that she wasn’t a one-volume abridgment of imbecility, not his for the beckoning; and she went defiantly, to put on a bonnet and a shawl which would have been a violent and successful assault on any complexion less admirable than hers. She was, indeed, playing her gambling card. And, to his surprise, he liked it. This, if it were not mere flicker, if it were not instinctive counterfeiting of a feminine move in a sex-game, was a spirit which would serve her well, and him too, in the drawing-rooms of the county in the future he was contemplating for them both. Wasn’t it fact that my Lord Montacute had married his cook and that she had made him a notable Lady? And he wasn’t a lord nor Phoebe a cook. Small Phoebe kept her promise, too. She came of hardy stock, and she hadn’t spent the day, as he had, standing at a spinning-jenny. He had to cry her mercy, flinging himself exhausted on the heather. “I said you ride too much,” she exulted, secure that he did not feign fatigue, standing over him while the blood raced happily through tingling limbs. “And you,” he retorted, “too little.” “I? I do not ride at all. You know we have no horses.” “It will be necessary for you to ride,” he said. “Why so?” she asked him. “Haven’t I proved that I can walk?” “Still,” he said, “I shall have horses brought tomorrow. Will you have me for riding master?” “To ride I should need a habit.” “Which I provide.” She held her breath. For what was it “necessary” for her to ride if not that he was thinking of a future for her that jumped giddily with her ambition? Still, she kept her head; still, she sensed the value of offering this man persistent opposition, and all she said was “Are you rested now?” He rose, to find himself aware of strange tremblings, not to be accounted for by tiredness, of a dampness on his brow, and, when he spoke, of a thickened voice. “You shall have the habit to-morrow,” he promised her. “They burned warlocks once,” she mocked him. A warlock is a wizard. “Habits do not come in a day except by magic.” “Yours will come by road, from Manchester. I ride in for it to-morrow.” “Neglecting your work?”