“My husband used to hunt with the Quorn, and I’ve done a bit with the Heythrop, but not just lately. It’s so frightfully expensive now. There’s nothing quite like it, of course.”
“My dear lady,” said Mr. Blatchbourne, “a good day with the hounds is more physically and mentally exhilarating than any exercise I know. It brings out the best in every man. All his senses are regaled with the finest and purest fare. The movement of the horse beneath him, the music of the pack, the smell of the countryside——”
“And the colour,” cried Blanche excitedly. “You’re perfectly right. No one can witness a meet without feeling the better for the sight. Why will men wear pink in the evening? The only place for pink is out in the open air on the top of a ripping horse. Then it’s just——”
“I agree,” said her host grimly. “Then it’s superb. How does it look there?”
Blanche started violently. Then as a matter of form she suffered her gaze to follow the damning finger.
“I—I—frankly, I don’t quite like it,” she stammered. “You know. It seems out of place.”
“It is,” said Mr. Blatchbourne. “Those doors are of oak.” Mrs. Cheviot shuddered. “Even if they were of deal, I should not have chosen pink. Look at the walls,” he continued. Blanche obeyed tremulously. “Above all, observe the ceiling. And then that chimney-piece. I was away at the time, but I’m told they rigged up a derrick to get that in place.”
“You—you were away?”
“Unhappily—yes. Otherwise my wife would not have been bamboozled and betrayed, madam, into seeking and then taking the advice of as arrant a gang of scoundrels as ever bluffed a fool out of his money.”
White to the lips—