Their ponies
whinnying like old friends, they met, by chance or appointment, before
the power of sleep had lifted from eyes still new and strange against
the morning. Sometimes Chantel the handsome rode glowering beside them,
sometimes Gilly, erect and solid in the saddle, laid upon their talk all
the weight of his honest, tired commonplaces.
But one morning she cantered up alone, laughing at her escape. His pony
bolted, and they raced along together as comrades happily join forces in
a headlong dream. Quivering bamboo swept behind them; the river, on
their other hand, met and passed in hurrying panorama. They had no time
for words, but only laughter. Words, indeed, had never yet advanced them
beyond that moment on the pagoda. And now, when their ponies fell into
a shambling trot, came the first impulse of speech.
"How lucky!" she cried. "How lucky we came this way! Now I can really
test you!"
He turned. Her glowing face was now averted, her gesture was not for
him, but for the scene. He studied that, to understand her.
The river, up which they had fled, now rested broad and quiet as a
shallow lake, burnished faintly, brooded over by a floating, increasing
light, not yet compounded into day.
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