Chapter XI: Mostyn Makes Reparation

"Take the horse away!" commanded Rada, petulantly, as soon as Pierce had disappeared. The stable-lad mounted upon Castor had been staring at the little group, undecided if he was still wanted, or if the inspection of the horse was concluded.

"Take him away!" she repeated, flashing angry eyes upon the boy. "I can't bear to look at him now," she added under her breath.

The lad touched the reins and Castor trotted quickly away. Mostyn and Rada were left in the comparative solitude of the great open space, though every now and again the sound of shouting came to them from the distance, and through the mist of the morning they could discern the shadowy forms of men and horses.

Rada sank down upon a bench, clasping her little hands about her knees; Mostyn stood by her side, waiting till she should have composed herself. He anticipated a painful scene: his worst fears had been realised, and even from the few words she had spoken, he understood what Rada must think of him. Of course, he was really guiltless of offence; he had been deceived, swindled, but even though Rada recognised this, she would still think that, actuated by his desire to checkmate her, he had taken the opportunity of gaining an unfair advantage.

He was sorry for Rada, and he was sorry for himself as well, for he saw at once where lay his duty. He knew even now what he would have to do. There must be no imputation of unfairness against him: he was bound, by the force of circumstances, to a contest with the girl, but he would fight in the open. She had issued the challenge with all the advantage on her side, but he felt no animosity against her for this: she had spoken just as she, a wayward, impulsive girl, might have been expected to speak. His only trouble was that she should have grounds for thinking ill of him.

He no longer felt bashful and shy in her presence. So much, at least, was in his favour. He seemed to know and understand her better for having seen the squalor and wretchedness of her home, for having realised the surroundings in which she lived. Then the Willis's had spoken so freely of her, almost every day, encouraged, of course, by Mostyn; he had felt at last that he had known the girl for years, and that her vagaries were no new thing to him.

Perhaps he knew her better than she knew herself; so Mostyn, who had had no experience of women, told himself in his conceit. It was all very well for her to pretend to be hard and wayward and selfish: he knew better. He knew what reason the villagers had for loving her; why, only yesterday old Mrs. Oldham at the post office had told him how Rada had given up days and days to nurse a little child who was ill with bronchitis, and who might have died of it had it not been for Rada's care of her. "If I could make her see herself and show herself to me in her true character," Mostyn muttered, "then we might be--well, friends, as well as rivals. If I could!"

Unfortunately, as well as having no knowledge of women, Mostyn was not possessed of much tact. And so, as usual, he blundered egregiously when he attempted to put his ideas into practice.

"I think, Mr. Clithero," Rada began, "that you have taken a very mean way of revenging yourself upon me. I thought you would have had more manly feelings----"

He knew what she meant, but he was in such a hurry to defend himself that he failed to find the words he wanted.

"I was rude to you the other night," Rada went on relentlessly. "I was rude to you at the Derby. I couldn't help myself. I always say just what comes into my head."

Mostyn was quite aware of this, but he did not mean to say so; he wanted to be very gentle with Rada, quite unconscious that gentleness was the one thing which in her present temper she would resent. "I don't think you meant to hurt," he said softly.

"I did," she retorted viciously. "You made such an idiot of yourself, nobody could have helped being rude and laughing at you. And yet it's you--a man who hasn't the smallest idea of racing, a man who'd buy a donkey and enter it for the Derby if he acted upon his own intelligence--it's you who, because you know I laid store by my horse, and because you've got some insane idea in your head of besting me on the racecourse--it's you who've played me this trick!" She spoke violently without the smallest attempt to weigh her words. "You knew Castor was mine," she went on. "You must have guessed it from what I said the other night. You knew, too, that my father is not to be depended upon. And if you had not known all that, Jack Treves told you the truth immediately after you had made the purchase; there was plenty of time to repair the error, if you had not been spiteful against me."

Mostyn flushed, stung by the injustice, but he was quite determined that he would not lose his temper. "You misjudge me," he said, "you misjudge me utterly. The whole thing has been a mistake, and if I have been to blame in any way I am quite willing to repair the error." He had no wish to enter into any long explanation, or to cast the blame where he knew it was merited, upon Rada's father. He realised, and very probably correctly, that this would only appear a further meanness in the girl's eyes. "The position is very simple," he went on, "and there is no need for you to scold me, Miss Armitage; please consider that Castor is yours."

It was Rada's turn to flush, for this was just what her father had hinted at, what he had no doubt relied upon. To accept Castor as a gift at Mostyn's hands was the very last thing which, in her present mood, she was prepared to do.

She drew herself up stiffly. "You are very kind," she said, "but do you think that we are beggars, my father and I, that you dare to make such a suggestion? What are you to me that I should accept a present from you?"

"Since there has been a mistake," Mostyn said, vainly striving to reconcile the girl's inconsistency in his mind, "I want to repair it the best way I can."

"Quite forgetting that there is such a thing as pride," Rada interrupted, "and that I have my fair share of it. No, Mr. Clithero, you have bought Castor, and Castor is yours, unless I am able to purchase him back. That is what I wish to see you about. I love my horse," she went on, sucking in her lips as though she found it difficult to make her explanation, "and there are many reasons why Castor should be particularly dear to me. So, since, as you say, the whole thing has been a mistake, you will let me buy Castor back. My father is bound to let me have the money," she added mendaciously, "when he knows how badly I want my horse."

Mostyn knew that this was not true, that Captain Armitage was the last man in the world to disgorge any money that he had become possessed of by any means whatsoever. He knew, too, that there were certainly no funds upon which Rada could draw, and he wondered vaguely how she proposed to raise a thousand pounds to repay him.

"I'd far sooner give you the horse," he said, "for, after all, I should be returning you your own. I want to have a shot for the next Derby, Miss Armitage," he went on, "and it isn't only because I have a sort of a bet with you. That's a motive with me, certainly, but it isn't all. However, I can find another horse, and really the money is of no importance to me. We are rivals, you and I, both eager to win, but both wanting to play the game fairly. You shall have Castor and I will look out for myself; is that a bargain?"

"Not unless I can pay you the thousand pounds," she retorted. "But if I can succeed in doing that, and without undue delay, Castor shall be mine again, and our rivalry can begin as soon as ever you like." She laughed derisively. "If it does, I don't think there'll be much chance for you, Mr. Clithero."

He shrugged his shoulders, seeing no use in argument. He did not want to accept Rada's thousand pounds, but he had sense to see that it was quite useless, as matters stood, to suggest any other solution of the difficulty.

"It shall be just as you please, Miss Armitage," he said with an effort to appear cheerful. "I'm going to do my best to win the Derby, but it won't be with Castor."

She rose from the bench upon which she had been sitting and once more extended her cold hand. "Thank you," she said. "There's nothing more to be settled for the present between us. You shall have your money and I my horse. That's decided."

Mostyn held her hand in his for a moment, despite her effort to withdraw it. He looked straight into her eyes. "I wonder," he said, "why we always meet to quarrel? I should like to be on better terms with you, Miss Armitage. We can be rivals and yet good friends, can't we? I am sorry that this misunderstanding should have happened, but really I'm not to blame."

He released the girl's hand, which fell to her side. Rada tapped the ground petulantly with her foot. Truth to tell, she was a little ashamed of herself. Mostyn may not have been so much to blame, after all; her father had a plausible tongue. But she was in a mood when to admit herself in the wrong would have been an impossibility for her. Had Mostyn been wise he would have left her alone; reflection and repentance would have come in due course. As it was, she hated him at that moment even for his offer to return Castor to her. How dared he even think that she would consent to such a thing?

She had no dislike for Mostyn really. In her heart she admired his clean, well-cut features, his stalwart, manly frame. More than once she had mentally compared him with other men of her acquaintance, especially with Jack Treves, and the comparison had been all in Mostyn's favour. Perhaps it was because she did not understand her own feelings, because she was too contradictory to yield to them, that she had always instinctively adopted an aggressive attitude when with Mostyn. In a sense it was against herself that she was fighting. How could she, who had been brought up almost from babyhood to the love of sport, have any esteem for such a greenhorn as this otherwise good-looking and good-tempered boy? It was that feeling that had impelled her to make fun of him, and which had caused her to resent bitterly what she had regarded as an attempt on his part to get the better of her.

A peculiar pugnacity had been aroused within her; perhaps the wild and wayward little creature was moved, without knowing it, by the natural strife between sex and sex. She felt instinctively the desire of the man to subdue and win her, and all her senses were accordingly in revolt.

"I suppose you think I'm a little minx, a sort of wild cat," she said, not looking at him but at the ground. "It's been my fault that we've quarrelled, and now you are reproaching me for it."

"You're hard to understand, Ra--Miss Armitage," Mostyn said; "there's no doubt whatever about that, but I don't think you are a bit the minx you are inclined to make yourself out to be." He was staring at her, admiring her neat figure with its delicate curves, her nicely poised head, and her black curls that, in the sunlight, had a tint of glowing blue in them; he could not see her eyes, but he imagined that they must glint with the same blue. He wanted her to look up, but she still stared at the little well-shod foot with which she was still tapping the ground.

"Yes I am, I'm bad-tempered; I say cruel things; I hurt people! But why shouldn't I?" she added defiantly, "when there's no one I care for and no one who cares for me? I've been brought up like that. I am hard by nature, and I don't see why I should pretend to be any other than I am."

Mostyn laughed a little. "I know better," he said. "You've got a heart of gold, Miss Armitage, though out of sheer perversity you don't like people to know it. But I've found you out, you see, though we've only known each other such a little while and quarrelled every time we've met."

"What do you mean?" she cried. She was looking up now, and her eyes had the blue glint in them, just as he had expected. They flashed upon him, but he could not tell if it were with anger or surprise.

"You say that nobody loves you, and you love nobody. If so, why are you always doing little acts of kindness to people? Why do all the villagers adore you?"

She stamped her foot. "I've got to do something," she cried. "I must occupy myself somehow. But that isn't the real me, the real Rada Armitage; you are quite mistaken if you think so. I'm as you've seen me, as I appear up in London--hard, cruel, a flirt, everything that's bad. Ask my father; he always calls me a little devil; I've been called a little devil ever since I can remember."

"I know others who call you an angel, with an aspirate tacked on," Mostyn laughed. He was rather enjoying himself; it was amusing telling the girl her good qualities and hearing them so violently contradicted. It was Rada's nature to contradict, that was very evident, but it was quite delicious to make her protest that she was all that was bad when the truth was so palpably otherwise.

"What is one to believe, what you say yourself or what others say of you? I know what I think," he went on, more than half-conscious that he was goading the girl into a fresh passion. But how could she resent it when he was really praising her? "The real Rada Armitage is kind-hearted and good----"

"No she isn't, she's--oh, I don't know what you are making me say! You are perfectly horrid! What's the good of telling a girl she's an angel when she feels quite the reverse? That's just like a man." Rada turned away, angrily biting her lip. "I don't want to hear any more of my virtues, thank you, Mr. Clithero; I'd like you better if you told me I was a beast. And now please excuse me, for I'm going to the stables to see Jack Treves. He doesn't tell me I'm an angel," she added viciously.

Mostyn made no reply; and after waiting a moment as though she expected him to speak, Rada turned on her heel and went in search of her mare, which was quietly grazing close at hand.