“I think that might be said of the youth of both sexes. The fakir, with his learning made-easy, is the foible of the age and its prototype extends to business methods—the get-rich-quick opportunities match the education-while-you-wait, and the art, reduced to a smudge with a thumb, and the ballads of a country—the voice of the heart of the people, superseded by ragtime.”
But Paula would not be appeased.
“If women are constitutionally idiots and cannot be taught,” she cried, “they ought not to be responsible for folly. That is a charter wide as the winds.”
“Not at all—not at all,” said her husband dogmatically. But how he would have reconciled the variant dicta of incapacity and accountability must remain a matter of conjecture, for there came suddenly on the air the iterative sound of the swift beat of hoofs and, through the open door in another moment, was visible a double phaëton drawn by a glossy, spirited blood bay, brought with difficulty to a pause and lifting alternately his small forefeet with the ardor of motion, even when the pressure on the bit in his mouth constrained his eager activity and brought him to a halt.
“I have won out,” said Ducie genially. Since it had awkwardly fallen to his lot to offer civilities to these people he did it with a very pretty grace. “I shall be glad to see you and your family to the station, Mr. Floyd-Rosney.”
Floyd-Rosney’s eyes were on the space beyond the portico.
“That’s a good horse you have,” he remarked seriously.
“Yes—before I bought him he was on the turf,—winner in several events.”
“You don’t often see such an animal in private use,” said Floyd-Rosney, unbending a trifle. He, too, loved a good horse for its own sake.
“True, but I am located at a considerable distance from the plantations I lease, and going to and fro he is of special use to me. I can’t stand a slow way of getting through the world, and the roads won’t admit of an auto.”