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Chifney was a gentle, pious woman, with whom her husband's profession went somewhat against the grain. She would have preferred a nice grocery, or other respectable, uneventful business in a country town, and dissipation in the form of prayer rather than of race-meetings. But as a slender, slightly self-righteous, young maiden she had fallen very honestly and completely in love with Tom Chifney.
And Richard Calmady, meanwhile, lay still and very fairly peaceful upon the narrow camp-bed in the middle of the room. He had lain there, save during one hour, the memory of which haunted Katherine with hideous and sickening persistence, ever since Tom Chifney, the head-lad from the stables, and a couple of grooms had carried him in, on a hurdle, from the steeple-chase course four days ago.
I shall take Chifney with me for a few days. But the stables will not give you any trouble. He will have given all the orders." "Very well," Katherine said mechanically. "Later I shall go on to Baden-Baden." Katharine rallied somewhat. "Helen de Vallorbes is there," she said, not without a trace of her former pride. "Certainly Helen de Vallorbes is there," he answered. "That is why I go.
We've waited a long time, a precious long time, sir, for you to come down and take a look at your horses." "I'd have been to see them sooner. I'd have given anything to see them. I've never had the chance, somehow." Chifney pursed up his lips, and surveyed the distant landscape with a very meaning glance. "I dare say not, Sir Richard.
"My dears," she said, "do you know it grows very late?" "All right," he answered, "we're making out some plans for to-morrow." He looked at Honoria again. "Chifney engaged he and Chaplin would find a horse, between them, which could be trusted to well to put up with me," he said. "I promised to go down and have breakfast with dear Mrs. Chifney at the stables, but I can be back here by eleven.
"Winter saw to our creature comforts," the young lady continued. "Oh, we weren't starved, I promise you! And Chifney was excellent company." She hesitated a moment. "He told me endless yarns about horses about Doncaster and Newmarket, and Goodwood. I was greatly flattered at being regarded sufficiently of the equestrian order to hear all that.
Then he would ride on, by a short cut, to the old, red-brick rubbing-house, crowning the rising ground on the farther side of the lake, and wait there to see the finish, talking of professional matters with Chifney meanwhile; or, turning his horse's head towards the wide, distant view, sit silent, drawing near to nature and worshipping with the innocent gladness of a still virgin heart in the temple of the dawn.
Only he could not see it plainly, but saw, instead of it, the great folio of copper-plate engravings lying on the broad window-seat of the eastern bay of the Long Gallery at home. He was sitting there to watch for the race-horses coming back from exercise, Tom Chifney pricking along beside them on his handsome cob.
The young leaves were fragile and green now, not sparse and metallic, and the April rain splashed in his face. He tried to call out to Tom Chifney, but the words died in his throat. If they would only put him on one of those horses! He knew he could ride, and so be safe and free. He called again. That time his voice came. They must hear.
"And it was there, Sir Richard," he said, "I met your father, and we fancied each other from the first. And he asked me to come to him. These stables were just building then. And here I've been ever since." Mr. Chifney stared down at the clean red quarries of the stable floor, and tapped his neat gaiters with the switch he held in his hand.
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