The Keepers of the People

192Their rides together in the early morning were for each the pleasantest part of pleasant days. Shut in between the leafy walls of the woods, or high up on the ridges, they seemed the only dwellers in the world, sharing between their two selves all the freshness of the morning. The long gallops set the blood dancing in their veins with equal step; opened their eyes for beauty; and quickened their spirits to a more than human exaltation. Now and again they raced; and her pale, dauntless face, the lips set, the eyes gleaming, the shining, childlike triumph on it, when she beat him, were like to be abiding memories in his mind. Then, too, his face lost its sternness, and filled with a joyous content; his eyes were inscrutable no more, but bright with a plain admiration of the intense life that informed her beauty. Moreover, he talked most freely; and their horses walked for miles while he answered her questions, trying to satisfy her insatiable curiosity concerning life, ever insisting that courage and joy were the essentials; that life was to the brave; that life without the laughter of the heart was worth nothing.

193“But you do not laugh at all,” she said to him one day.

194“My eyes laugh sometimes, I think — when I am with you,” he said slowly. “But I paid my laughter that others might laugh a long while ago.”

195She did not ask him what he meant; she respected his aversion to talking of himself.

196Lord Lisdor watched their friendship with a complete content: he had an utter trust in his wife. Besides, his passion for her had waned from its extreme, physical pitch; and the fondness that remained from it would have been little distressed by her falling in love with another man. Had she done so indeed, it would have been something of a relief; for, a born woman-hunter, he assured himself, with an admirable frankness, that the next charming woman who came his way, would fill his empty heart; and that it was as well that Ruth’s mind should be diverted to other cares.