"A serious row?"
"Very possibly." Mostyn fidgeted. What was the good of all these questions? He had put aside the evil day, determined to live in the present. He was enjoying himself; why spoil his pleasure? A bell rang and the police could be seen clearing the course. Another race was about to be run. Mostyn fumbled with his programme. "Who's going to win this event?" he asked.
"A devil of a row, if I'm not mistaken," Anthony Royce said reflectively, ignoring the question. "John Clithero would sacrifice his flesh and blood upon the altar of his principles. I'm afraid you will get into trouble, my boy. Well, what I want to say is this. Come to me if things go badly with you. Don't let any silly pride stand in your way. I've got an idea in my head, and you can help me work it out. You will be doing me a favour, far more than the other way about. You needn't think it a matter of charity—I'm not that kind of man. Furthermore, it's nothing mean or underhand that I shall ask you—to that you have my word." Royce had evidently read the young man's character very well. "Now—supposing your father shows you the door—he may, you know—will you come to me?"
"I will," Mostyn stretched out his hand, a strong, well-made hand, and the elder man took it in his, holding it a moment, and looking the boy squarely in the eyes.
"That's a deal," he said, heartily; "I shall expect to see you, Mostyn."
After the next race, a race over which Mostyn's enthusiasm was again roused, though not to the same pitch as before, the guests upon Sir Roderick's coach returned in little straggling groups to partake of tea. Sir Roderick himself, flushed with his victory, did the honours, and received the congratulations of all his friends. He was bubbling over with good spirits, perpetrated innumerable verbal blunders, at which he was the first to laugh, and distributed "largesse" freely among the hangers-on about the coach—this, until such a crowd of minstrels, gipsies, and such like had collected that it was all the grooms could do to disperse them; but it was a good-natured, cheering crowd, and Sir Roderick was distinctly enjoying himself.
Captain Armitage, his white beard and moustache contrasting forcibly with his rubicund complexion, disdained tea, and appropriated a champagne bottle to himself. He was less excitable than he had been on the journey down, but then, as he would say himself, he was the kind of man whom drink sobered. Lady Lempiere and Major Molyneux were conspicuous by their absence, but all the other guests had put in an appearance. Lord Caldershot was still assiduous in his attentions to Rada, who, for her part, was in a state of delight at having won the coach sweepstake, as well as several pounds, the proceeds of her own investment upon Hipponous, plus many pairs of gloves which she had apparently won off her cavalier.
She was a distinctly pretty girl; Mostyn, who had had some opportunities of talking to her during the day, was constrained to admit the fact. He was attracted by her, and yet, at the same time, in some peculiar manner, repelled. She was unlike any girl he had ever met. She had no reserve of manner, she spoke as freely as a man might speak, and yet her whole appearance was distinctly feminine.
"Rada Armitage is a little savage," so Royce had explained her to Mostyn. "She has lived all her life with that wretched old scapegrace, her father, for her mother died when she was an infant. She has never known a controlling hand. Heaven knows how they exist—Armitage's cottage at Partingborough is a disgrace to a civilised man. Rada's like an untrained filly, and you must take her at that. She was called after a horse, too, one upon which the captain won a lot of money the year she was born."
The girl was small in stature, although she was slim and perfectly proportioned, giving, perhaps, an impression of inches which she really did not possess. Her hair was deep black, glossy, and inclined to be rebellious; her eyes, too, were black, very bright, piercing, and particularly expressive. They seemed to change in some peculiar way with every emotion that swayed her; one moment they would be soft, the next they would flash with humour, and then again they would be scornfully defiant. As with her eyes, so it was with her mouth and with her face generally; to Mostyn she was a puzzle, and he wondered what her real nature could be.