Stanistreet, who was looking at Mrs. Nevill Tyson at the time, saw the smile and the color die out of her face; her beauty seemed to suffer a shade, a momentary eclipse. She began to drink tea (they were at breakfast) with an air of abstraction too precipitate to be quite convincing.

"Moll," said Tyson, "if you're going to this meet, you'd better run upstairs and put your things on."

"I don't want to go to any meets."

"Why not?"

"Because—I—I don't like to see other women riding."

"Bless her little heart!" (Tyson was particularly affectionate this morning) "she's never had a bridle in her ridiculous hands, and she talks about 'other women riding.'"

"Because I want to ride, and you won't let me, and I'm jealous."

"Well, if you mayn't ride with me, you may drive with Stanistreet."

"I may drive Captain Stanistreet?"

"Certainly not; Captain Stanistreet may drive you."

"We'll see about that," said Mrs. Nevill Tyson as she left the room.

She soon reappeared, enchantingly pretty again in her laces and furs.

It was a glorious morning, the first thin white frost after a long thaw. The meet was in front of the Cross-Roads Inn, about a mile out of Drayton Parva. It was neutral ground, where Farmer Ashby could hold his own with Sir Peter any day, and speech was unfettered. Somebody remarked that Mrs. Nevill Tyson looked uncommonly happy in the dog-cart; while Tyson spoke to nobody and nobody spoke to him. Poor devil! he hadn't at all a pretty look on that queer bleached face of his. And all the time he kept twisting his horse's head round in a melancholy sort of way,