“There is Flora Billingsgate, the greatest coquette and hardest rider in the country,” said my companion, Ralph Mortmain, as we stood upon Dingleby Common before the meet.
I looked up and beheld Guy Heavystone bending haughtily over the saddle, as he addressed a beautiful brunette. She was indeed a splendidly groomed and high-spirited woman. We were near enough to overhear the following conversation, which any high-toned reader will recognize as the common and natural expression of the higher classes.
“When Diana takes the field the chase is not wholly confined to objects ferae nature,” said Guy, darting a significant glance at his companion. Flora did not shrink either from the glance or the meaning implied in the sarcasm.
“If I were looking for an Endymion, now,”—she said archly, as she playfully cantered over a few hounds and leaped a five-barred gate.
Guy whispered a few words, inaudible to the rest of the party, and curveting slightly, cleverly cleared two of the huntsmen in a flying leap, galloped up the front steps of the mansion, and, dashing at full speed through the hall, leaped through the drawing-room window and rejoined me, languidly, on the lawn.
“Be careful of Flora Billingsgate,” he said to me, in low stern tones, while his pitiless eye shot a baleful fire. “Gardez-vous!”
“Gnothi seauton,” I replied calmly, not wishing to appear to be behind him in perception or verbal felicity.
Guy started off in high spirits. He was well carried. He and the first whip, a ten-stone man, were head and head at the last fence, while the hounds were rolling over their fox a hundred yards farther in the open.
But an unexpected circumstance occurred. Coming back, his chestnut mare refused a ten-foot wall. She reared and fell backward. Again he led her up to it lightly; again she refused, falling heavily from the coping. Guy started to his feet. The old pitiless fire shone in his eyes; the old stern look settled around his mouth. Seizing the mare by the tail and mane he threw her over the wall. She landed twenty feet on the other side, erect and trembling. Lightly leaping the same obstacle himself, he remounted her. She did not refuse the wall the next time.
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