She had been buggy-riding before, but always behind one horse,
jaded, and livery, in a top-buggy, heavy and dingy, such as
livery stables rent because of sturdy unbreakableness. But here
stood two horses, head-tossing and restless, shouting in every
high-light glint of their satin, golden-sorrel coats that they
had never been rented out in all their glorious young lives.
Between them was a pole inconceivably slender, on them were
harnesses preposterously string-like and fragile. And Billy
belonged here, by elemental right, a part of them and of it, a
master-part and a component, along with the spidery-delicate,
narrow-boxed, wide- and yellow-wheeled, rubber-tired rig,
efficient and capable, as different as he was different from the
other man who had taken her out behind stolid, lumubering horses.
He held the reins in one hand, yet, with low, steady voice,
confident and assuring, held the nervous young animals more by
the will and the spirit of him.

It was no time for lingering. With the quick glance and
fore-knowledge of a woman, Saxon saw, not merely the curious
children clustering about, but the peering of adult faces from
open doors and windows, and past window-shades lifted up or held
aside. With his free hand, Billy drew back the linen robe and
helped her to a place beside him. The high-backed, luxuriously
upholstered seat of brown leather gave her a sense of great
comfort; yet even greater, it seemed to her, was the nearness and
comfort of the man himself and of his body.

"How d'ye like 'em?" he asked, changing the reins to both hands
and chirruping the horses, which went out with a jerk in an