Yes; she is
like a tigress--a tigress asleep and in a good temper just for the
present; but--"
Stafford laughed, the strong and healthy man's laugh of good-natured
tolerance for the fancies of the woman he loves.
"My dear Ida, I assure you Miss Falconer is quite an ordinary young
woman with nothing mysterious or uncanny about her. And if she has seen
us, I am rather glad. I--well, I want to take you by the hand and
exclaim aloud to the whole world: 'Behold the treasure I have found!
Look upon her--but shade your eyes lest her beauty dazzle you--and
worship at her feet.' Only a day or two more and I'll tell my father
and have him on our side."
She made a gesture of consent.
"It shall be as you will," she murmured again. "But go now, dearest; I
shall have to ride fast to reach home in time to give my father his
tea."
Maude Falconer cantered easily until she had turned the corner of the
hill and was out of sight of Stafford and Ida, then she pulled up the
high-bred horse who fretted under her steel-like hands and tossed the
foam from his champing lips, pulled up and looked straight before her,
while the colour came and went on her smooth cheek; a sombre fire
gleamed in the usually coldly calm eyes, and her bosom heaved under the
perfect moulding of the riding-habit.
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