I replied with truth that there was no room to turn. On either side of the narrow drive laurels and rhododendrons were crammed as thickly as they could be planted, their dark foliage met overhead; if the inexpressible "She" referred to by the lodge-keeper did come our way, retreat would be out of the question. The tunnel ran uphill, and I drove the pony up it as one drives a hoop, by incessant beating; had I relaxed my efforts he would probably, like a hoop, have lain down. Presently, and still uphill, we turned a corner, the tunnel ceased, and we were face to face with a large pink house.
As we advanced, feeling to the full the degradation of making a short-cut past a strange house, in tall hats and a grovelling pony-carriage, we beheld figures rushing past the windows of one of the rooms on the ground floor, as if in headlong flight. Was this the fulfilment of the dark sayings of the lodge-keeper, and was "She" "coming our way?" The bouncing strains of a measure, known, I believe, as "Whistling Rufus," came forth to us hilariously as we drew nearer. The problem changed, but I am not sure that the horror did not deepen.
Divining the determination of the piebald pony to die, if necessary, rather than pass a hall door without stopping at it, yet debarred by the decencies from thrashing him past the long line of windows, I administered two or three rousing tugs to his wooden mouth. At the third tug the near rein broke. The pony stopped dead. Simultaneously the hall door was flung open, and a young and lovely being, tall, and beautifully dressed, fluttered out on to the steps and peered at us through long-handled eye-glasses.
"Oh! I thought you were the police!" exclaimed the being, with unaffected disappointment.
The position seemed, from all points, to demand an apology. I disengaged myself from the pony-carriage and proffered it; I also volunteered any help that a mere man, not a policeman, might be capable of rendering.
The young lady aimed her glasses at the pie-bald, motionless in malign stupor, and replied irrelevantly:
"Why! That's the Knoxes' pony!"
I made haste to explain our disaster and the position generally, winding up with a request for a piece of string.
"You're staying at the Butler-Knoxes!" exclaimed the lady of the house. "How funny that is! Do you know you're coming to our dance to-night, to meet your old friend the General! I know all about it, you see!" She advanced with a beaming yet perturbed countenance upon Philippa, "I'm so glad to meet you. Do come in! We've got an infuriated cook at bay in the kitchen, and things are rather disorganised, but I think we can rise to a bit of string! The pony's all right—he'll sleep there for months, he always does."
We followed her into a hall choked with the exiled furniture of the drawing-room, and saw through an open door the whirling forms of two or three couples of young men and maidens.