Before they reached the hotel she had
brought him up with the powerful curb, and prancing, curvetting,
straining side-wise first in one direction, then in the other,
meanwhile trembling half with anger, half with terror, the mastered
brute passed the piazza with its admiring groups. Graydon was at her
side. He did not see Miss Wildmere frowning with vexation and envy,
or Arnault's complacent observance. With sternly compressed lips and
steady eye he watched Madge, that, whatever emergency occurred, he
might do all that was possible. The young girl herself was a presence
not soon to be forgotten. Her lips were slightly parted, her eye
glowing with a joyous sense of power, and her pose, flexible to the
eccentric motions of the horse, grace itself. They passed on down the
winding carriage-drive, out upon the main street, and then she turned,
waved her handkerchief to Mr. Muir, and with her companion galloped
away.
Several of Mr. Muir's acquaintances came forward, offering
congratulations, which he accepted with his quiet smile, and then went
up to reassure his wife, who, in spite of her words to the contrary,
had kept her eyes fastened upon Madge as long as she was in sight.
"Well," she exclaimed, "did you ever see anything equal to that?"
"No," said her husband, "but I have seen nothing wonderful or
unnatural; she did not do a thing that she had not been trained and
taught to do, and all her acts were familiar by much usage.
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