cantered up, mounted on Aida.

"Oh, nothing except that Mademoiselle has just missed killing my husband
with that wicked animal of hers!" cried the Maegera, in a fury.

"Mademoiselle might turn the accusation against him," Madame de Nointel
said, with some malice. "It was he who frightened her horse."

The fiery animal, with distended veins and quivering nostrils, snorted
violently, cavorted sidewise, and tried to run. Zibeline needed all her
firmness of grasp to force him, without allowing herself to be thrown, to
stand still on the spot whence had come the movement that had alarmed
him.

"Your horse needs exercise," said Henri to the equestrienne. "You ought
to give him an opportunity to do something besides the formal trot around
this path."

"I should be able to do so, if ever we could have our match," said
Zibeline. "Will you try it now?"

"Come on!"

She nodded, gave him her hand an instant, and they set off, side by side,
followed by Zibeline's groom, no less well mounted than she, and wearing
turned-over boots, bordered with a band of fawn-colored leather,
according to the fashion.