There was still something pulling at his
coat-tail, so that there might yet be a chance of saving him from
the precipice. But he failed. The tired horseman before whom the
suggestion was casually thrown out, would have been delighted to
accept it, instead of riding all the way to Mistletoe; but he did
not look upon it as made in earnest. Two, he knew, were company and
three none.
The hunting field is by no means a place suited for real
love-making. Very much of preliminary conversation may be done there
in a pleasant way, and intimacies may be formed. But when lovers
have already walked with arms round each other in a wood, riding
together may be very pleasant but can hardly be ecstatic. Lord
Rufford might indeed have asked her to be Lady R. while they were
breaking up the first fox, or as they loitered about in the big
wood;--but she did not expect that. There was no moment during the
day's sport in which she had a right to tell herself that he was
misbehaving because he did not so ask her. But in a post chaise it
would be different.
At the inn at Stamford the horses were given up, and Arabella
condescended to take a glass of cherry brandy. She had gone through
a long day; it was then half-past four, and she was not used to be
many hours on horseback. The fatigue seemed to her to be very much
greater than it had been when she got back to Rufford immediately
after the fatal accident.
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