r horse back in
order to offer her excuses for his misconduct, the effects of which
Madame Desvanneaux tried to efface by brushing off the gravel with the
corner of her handkerchief.

"What has happened?" asked General de Prerolles, who at that moment
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.

CHAPTER XXV. THE AMAZON HAS A FALL

They were a well-matched pair: he, the perfect type of the elegant and
always youthful soldier; she, the most dashing of all the Amazons in the
Bois, to quote the words of Edmond Delorme.

Everyone was familiar with the personal appearance of both riders, and
recognized them, but until now Mademoiselle de Vermont had always ridden
alone, and now to see her accompanied by the gallant General, whose
embroidered kepi glittered in the sunlight, was a new spectacle for the
gallery.

The people looked at them all the more because Seaman was still
prancing, but without unseating his mistress, who held him at any gait
or any degree of swiftness that pleased her.

"What a good seat you have!" said Henri.

"That is the first real compliment you ever have paid me. I shall
appropriate it immediately, before you have time to retract it,"
Zibeline replied.

At the circle of Melezes, Henri proposed to turn to the right, in order
to reach Longchamp.

"A flat race! You are joking!" Zibeline cried, turning to the left,
toward the road of La