And to put it frankly, it was something like fascination. She had come
upon him so suddenly, her feat of horsemanship had been so audacious,
her beauty was so marvellous that Stafford, perhaps for the first time
in his life, found himself unable to utter a word in the presence of
one of the opposite sex. It was only for a moment or two, of course,
that he lost his presence of mind; then he pulled himself together and
raised his cap. She gave him the very slightest of bows. It was the
faintest indication only of response to his salute; her eyes rested on
his face with a strange, ungirlish calm, then wandered to the last
trout which lay on the bank.
Stafford felt that something had to be said, but for the life of him,
for the first time in his experience, he couldn't hit upon the thing to
say. "Good-afternoon" seemed to him too banal, commonplace; and he
could think of nothing else for a moment. However, it came at last.
"Will you be so good as to tell me if I am far from Carysford?" he
asked.
"Four miles and three-quarters by the road, three miles over the hill,"
she replied, slowly, as calmly as she had looked at him, and in a voice
low and sweet, and with a ring, a tone, in it which in some indefinable
way harmonised with her appearance.
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