"Wait a minute—I'll come down with you!" said Beryl, and, rushing to the mirror over the mantel, began to pat her pretty cendré hair flat to her head, in unconscious imitation of Mrs. Hading's coiffure.
The two girls went downstairs together. Beryl's arm thrust through her friend's. Gay's horse stood at the side entrance, facing the staircase. She instinctively quickened her pace as they reached the lounge door, but, before she could pass, it opened, and Mrs. Hallett came out.
"Oh, I was just coming to look for you girls. Mrs. Scott is in from
Umvuma, Gay, and dying to see you."
Gay gave an inward groan. Mrs. Scott was an old friend of her dead mother's, and about the only woman in the world for whom the girl would have entered the lounge at that moment. As it was, she followed Beryl's mother swiftfoot through the swing door, very upright and smart in her glossy tan riding-boots, knee-breeches, and graceful long coat of soft tan linen. In the matter of riding-kit, Gay always went nap. A ball or day gown she might wear until it fell off her back, but when it came to habits, she considered nothing too good or too recent for her.
For a moment, Marice Hading looked away from the man who sat opposite, amusing her with apt and cynical reflections on life in Rhodesia, and shot a soft, dark glance at the straight back of the girl in riding-kit. Her cleverly appraising eye took in, with the instantaneousness of photography, every detail of Gay's get-up, and her brain acknowledged that she had seldom seen a better one either in Central Park or Rotten Row. But no expression of any such opinion showed in her weary, disdainful eyes or found its way to her lips, for in the art of using language to conceal her thoughts, Marice Hading had few rivals. What she said to Druro, whose glance had also wandered that way, was:
"One cannot help noticing what a hard-riding, healthy-looking crowd the women of this country are."
The words sounded like a simple, frank statement; but somehow they robbed Gay of some of the perfection of her young and charming ensemble, and made her one of a crowd in which her distinction was lost. Druro felt this vaguely without being able to tell exactly how it happened. He knew nothing of the subtleties of a woman's mind. He had thought that Gay looked rather splendidly young and sweet, and, because of it, a fresh pang shot through him at the remembrance of her scornful dismissal of him the night before. But, with Mrs. Hading's words, the impression passed, and he got a quick vision of Gay as just an ordinary girl who had been extremely rude to him. This helped him to meet with equanimity the calm, clear glance she sent through him.
"Don't you know the little riding girl?" asked Mrs. Hading softly, but something in Druro's surprised expression made her cover the question with a faintly admiring remark: "She's quite good-looking, I think. Who is she?"
"The daughter of an old friend of mine—a Colonel Liscannon," said Druro, speaking in a low voice and rapidly. He would have preferred not to discuss Gay at all, but his natural generosity impelled him to accord her such dignity and place as belonged to her and not to leave her where Mrs. Hading's words seemed to place her—just the other side of some fine, invisible line.
"Ah, one of the early pioneers? They were all by way of being captains and colonels, weren't they?" murmured Marice Hading, still weaving fine, invisible threads.