"What of it?" he said.
She laughed down at him. "Let's mount! I'll race you to it."
He leapt to his feet like, a boy. "What's the betting?"
"Anything you like!" she threw back gaily. "Whoever gets there
first can fix the stakes."
He laughed aloud, and the sound of his laugh made her catch her
breath with a sharp, involuntary start. She ran to her mount
feeling as if Guy were behind her, and with an odd perversity she
would not look round to disillusion herself.
During the fevered minutes that followed, the illusion possessed
her strongly, so strongly that she almost forgot the vital
importance of being first. It was the thudding hoofs of his
companion that made her animal gallop rather than any urging of
hers. But once started, with the air swirling past her and the
excitement of rapid motion setting her veins on fire, the spirit of
the race caught her again, and she went like the wind.
The blasted tree stood on a slope nearly a mile away. The ground
was hard, and the grass seemed to crackle under the galloping
hoofs. The horse she rode carried her with superb ease. He was
the finest animal she had ever ridden, and from the first she
believed the race was hers.
On she went through the orange glow of evening. It was like a
swift entrancing dream. And the years fell away from her as if
they had never been, and she and Guy were racing over the slopes of
her father's park, as they had raced in the old sweet days of youth
and early love.
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