For a moment she stood, her head thrown back, her eyes averted
disdainfully, and it was now that Barnabas first noticed the dimple
in her chin, and he was yet observing it very exactly when he became
aware that her haughtiness was gone again and that her eyes were
looking up at him, half laughing, half shy, and of course wholly
bewitching.

"Yes, I know it was," she admitted, "but oh! won't you please
believe that a woman can't fall off her horse without being hurt,
though it won't bleed much." Now as she spoke a distant clock began
to strike and she to count the strokes, soft and mellow with distance.

"Nine!" she exclaimed with an air of tragedy--"then I shall be late
for breakfast, and I'm ravenous--and gracious heavens!"

"What now, madam?"

"My hair! It's all come down--look at it!"

"I've been doing so ever since I--met you," Barnabas confessed.

"Oh, have you! Then why didn't you tell me of it--and I've lost
nearly all my hairpins--and--oh dear! what will they think?"

"That it is the most beautiful hair in all the world, of course,"
said Barnabas. She was already busy twisting it into a shining rope,
but here she paused to look up at him from under this bright nimbus,
and with two hair-pins in her mouth.

"Oh!" said she again very thoughtfully, and then "Do you think so?"