"You remind me of the time when Leonidas—"
"O, bother Leonidas and your classical allusions. Come!"
We descended to dinner.
CHAPTER III.
"He carries weight, he rides a race,
'Tis for a thousand pound."
"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 naturae," 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 drawing-room window and rejoined me, languidly, on the lawn.