"When must you get back?" she asked.
"I'm not particular," he said.
There the conversation again broke down.
Brangwen's companions were ready to go on.
"Art commin', Tom," they called, "or art for stoppin'?"
"Ay, I'm commin'," he replied, rising reluctantly, an angry
sense of futility and disappointment spreading over him.
He met the full, almost taunting look of the girl, and he
trembled with unusedness.
"Shall you come an' have a look at my mare," he said to her,
with his hearty kindliness that was now shaken with
trepidation.
"Oh, I should like to," she said, rising.
And she followed him, his rather sloping shoulders and his
cloth riding-gaiters, out of the room. The young men got their
own horses out of the stable.
"Can you ride?" Brangwen asked her.
"I should like to if I could--I have never tried," she
said.
"Come then, an' have a try," he said.
And he lifted her, he blushing, she laughing, into the
saddle.
"I s'll slip off--it's not a lady's saddle," she
cried.
"Hold yer tight," he said, and he led her out of the hotel
gate.
The girl sat very insecurely, clinging fast. He put a hand on
her waist, to support her. And he held her closely, he clasped
her as in an embrace, he was weak with desire as he strode
beside her.
The horse walked by the river.
"You want to sit straddle-leg," he said to her.
"I know I do," she said.
It was the time of very full skirts. She managed to get
astride the horse, quite decently, showing an intent concern for
covering her pretty leg.
"It's a lot's better this road," she said, looking down at
him.
"Ay, it is," he said, feeling the marrow melt in his bones
from the look in her eyes. "I dunno why they have that
side-saddle business, twistin' a woman in two."
"Should us leave you then--you seem to be fixed up
there?" called Brangwen's companions from the road.
He went red with anger.
"Ay--don't worry," he called back.
"How long are yer stoppin'?" they asked.
"Not after Christmas," he said.
And the girl gave a tinkling peal of laughter.
"All right--by-bye!" called his friends.
And they cantered off, leaving him very flushed, trying to be
quite normal with the girl. But presently he had gone back to
the hotel and given his horse into the charge of an ostler and
had gone off with the girl into the woods, not quite knowing
where he was or what he was doing. His heart thumped and he
thought it the most glorious adventure, and was mad with desire
for the girl.