Scarlet and Hyssop. Эдвард Бенсон

to my house on the river and throw sticks for my dogs. You've never been there yet, Mrs. Brereton. Do come down sometimes. I shall drive there on Saturday night after the opera."

      Mrs. Brereton made a short calculation.

      "I will; I should love to," she said. "I hear it is charming."

      "A dozen basket chairs and two dozen dogs," said Madame Guardina.

      "I adore dogs. Are you off? Good-bye. About the middle of next week?"

      "Any day."

      Mildred gave her a charming smile and turned to Jack.

      "That's one good-natured thing this morning already," she said, "and it's barely ten yet. Pagani was just moving when I saw Guardina; he'll be gone before she gets to him."

      "I wish you were half as good-natured to me," remarked Jack.

      "Well, what can I do for you?"

      "Tell me how to behave to a hopelessly unreasonable woman, who is one's wife!"

      Mildred puckered her lips as if to whistle.

      "Explain in five minutes," she said. "I can't really hold this untamed savage any longer. Come on, Jack; we'll canter—shall we call it? up to the end."

      Whether Mildred called it a canter or not, it is not doubtful what other people would have called it. But even the heart of the restraining policeman must have been touched by the splendid vision that flew by him, Mildred sitting her horse as no other woman could, sitting a horse also that few could have sat at all, and treating its agitated toe-steps with less concern than a man in an arm-chair gives to a persistent fly on a summer afternoon. The consciousness that hundreds of people were looking at her added, if anything, to her unconcern; certainly also the fact that many who saw her saw also, and remarked, that Jack was with her gave an additional zest to her enjoyment. For her creed was that secrecy in this world was impossible, and the only way to prevent people talking in the way that mattered and was annoying was to do things quite openly. It mattered not in the least if people said, "Oh, we have always known that!" or if they always took it for granted; what did matter was if they said, "We have lately thought there must be something of the kind!" Trespassers can be prosecuted; length of possession constitutes a title.

      They drew up at the top of the mile, and Mildred adjusted her hat.

      "There," she said, "the cobwebs have been dispersed for the day. Now we'll go on talking. Explain, Jack. Why do you want treatment for Marie?"

      Jack lit a cigarette.

      "She makes scenes," he said, "and they bore me. She made one last night."

      "What about?"

      "I don't know that it's worth repeating, really," he said.

      "Probably not, but you are going to tell me."

      He looked at her a moment with his thin eyebrows drawn together in a frown, hit his horse rather savagely for an imaginary stumble, and reined it in again more sharply than was necessary.

      "I don't the least like being dictated to, Mildred," he said. "Nobody adopts that tone with me—with any success, that is to say."

      She laughed.

      "Oh, my excellent friend," she said, "you really speak as if I was afraid of you. For goodness' sake, don't put on schoolmaster airs. You know perfectly well that doesn't go down. Don't hit your horse now; you are behaving like a sulky child that whips its doll. What was the scene about?"

      "Did you see the infernal manner in which she walked off with Jim Spencer last night, driving him home in her brougham and saying she was going to Blanche Devereux'? That was her way of getting quits with me."

      "Quits with you? What for?"