Lady May touched her horse with her spur. "Thank you, Mr. de Vaux!" she said haughtily. "I will not trouble you any more. Please don't follow me!"
Paul watched her ride down the hillside and join one of the little groups dotted about outside the cover-side, with a curious sense of unreality. After a while he broke into a little laugh, and, shaking his reins, lit a cigar. This was a new character for him altogether. He knew himself that no man had kept his life more blameless than he! If anything, he felt sometimes that he had erred upon the other side in thinking and speaking too hastily of those who had been less circumspect. And now, it had come to this. The woman whose good opinion he had always valued next to his mother's had deliberately accused him of what must have seemed to her a flagrant outrage on decency. Her words were still ringing in his ears: "Please don't follow me." Lady May had said that to him; it was a little hard to realize.
A commotion around the cover below was a welcome diversion to him just then. A fox had got clear away, and hounds were in full cry. Paul pressed his hat down, and settled into his saddle with a grim smile. The physical excitement was just what he wanted, and in a few minutes he was leading the field, with only the master by his side, and Captain Westover a few yards behind.
At the first check, Captain Westover rode up to him. "I want just a word or two with you, De Vaux!" he said, drawing him on one side.
Paul drew himself up in his saddle, and sat there glum and unbending. "I am at your service," he answered. "I have had the pleasure already of a short conversation with your sister this morning."
Captain Westover nodded. "I suppose so. I want to beg your pardon first for what I am going to say, De Vaux. If I make an ass of myself, don't scruple to say so! But I want to ask you this! Why, in thunder, did you let Adrea what's-her-name, the dancing girl, come down here?"
"It was no business of mine! I did not know that she was coming!"
Captain Westover stroked his moustache and looked puzzled. "Look here, old man," he said slowly, "you go to see her in London, don't you?"
"I have been!"
"Just so! And you were down at the cottage last night, weren't you?"