The Nonesuch

“True! Does it occur to you that if I employed such tactics against—oh, Miss Chartley—Miss Colebatch there—yourself—I should be taken completely at fault? You would none of you show a side you don’t possess. What’s more, ma’am, I don’t make the chit coquet with me, or boast of her looks and her conquests to impress me: I merely offer her the opportunity to do so—and much good that would do me if she had as much elegance of mind as of person! All I should win by casting out such lures to a girl of character would be a well-deserved set-down.”

She could not deny it, and rode on in silence. He saw that she was still looking rather troubled, and said: “Take comfort, you over-anxious creature! I may encourage her to betray her tantrums and her selfishness but I would no more create a situation to conjure up these faults than I would compromise her.” He laughed suddenly. “A work of supererogation! If she could fly into a passion merely because Julian expressed a mild desire to include Miss Chartley in this party we shan’t suffer from a want of such situations! Who knows! He may feel it incumbent upon him to pay a little attention to Miss Colebatch presently, in which case we shall find ourselves in the centre of a vortex!”

She was obliged to laugh, but she shuddered too, begging him not to raise such hideous spectres. “Though I’ve no real apprehension in this instance,” she added, “Miss Colebatch is the one girl with whom Tiffany has struck up a friendship.”

“Yes, I have observed that the redhead regards her with enormous admiration.”

“I shall take leave to tell you, Sir Waldo,” said Miss Trent severely, “that remark had better have been left unspoken!”

“It would have been, had I been talking to anyone but yourself.”

Fortunately, since she could not think what to say in reply to this, Courtenay came trotting back to them at that moment, to inform them of a slight change of plan. By skirting the cornfield that lay beyond the hedge to their right they could cut a corner, and so be the sooner out of the lane, and on to open ground, he said. The only thing was that there was no gate on the farther side: did Miss Trent feel she could jump the hedge?

“What, on that collection of bad points? Certainly not!” said Sir Waldo.

Courtenay grinned, but said: “I know, but there’s nothing to it, sir! He’ll brush through it easily enough—or she could pull him through it, if she chooses!”

“Oh, could she?” said Miss Trent, her eye kindling. “Well, she don’t choose! By all means let us escape as soon as we may from this stuffy lane!”

“I knew you were a right one!” said Courtenay. “There is a gate on this side, where the others are waiting, and I’ll have it open in a trice.”

He wheeled his hack, and trotted off again. Miss Trent turned her fulminating gaze upon the Nonesuch, but he disarmed her by throwing up his hand in the gesture of a fencer acknowledging a hit, saying hastily: “No, no, don’t snap my nose off! I cry craven!”

“So I should hope, sir!” she said, moving off in Courtenay’s wake. She said over her shoulder, sudden mischief in her face: “I wish that handsome thoroughbred of yours may not make you look no-how by refusing!”

An answering gleam shone in his eyes. “You mean you wish he may! But I’m on my guard, and shall wait for you to show me the way!”

The hedge proved, however, to be much as Courtenay had described it, presenting no particular difficulty to even the sorriest steed, but Tiffany, who was leading the procession round the side of the field, approached it at a slapping pace, and soared over it with inches to spare. Miss Colebatch exclaimed: “Oh, one would think that lovely mare had wings! I wish I could ride like that!”

“I’m glad you don’t ride like that!” said Courtenay, “Wings! She’s more like to end with a broken leg!” He reined his horse aside, saying politely to Sir Waldo: “Will you go, sir?”

“Yes, if you wish—but rather more tamely! Your cousin is an intrepid horsewoman, and might become an accomplished one, but you should teach her not to ride at a hedge as if she had a stretch of water to clear. She’ll take a rattling fall one of these days.”

“Lord, sir, I’ve told her over and over again to ride fast at water, and slow at timber, but she never pays the least heed to what anyone says! She’s a show-off—though I’ll say this for her!!—she don’t care a rush for a tumble!”

“And rides with a light hand,” said Julian, with a challenging look at Sir Waldo.

“Yes, and such a picture as she presents!” said Miss Colebatch.

Miss Trent, following Sir Waldo over the hedge, observed, as she reined in beside him, that that at least was true. He shrugged, but did not reply. The rest of the party joined them; and as they were now upon uncultivated ground they rode on in a body for some way, and the opportunity for private conversation was lost.