University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

“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 ferœ naturœ,” 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 curvetting 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 drawingroom
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.