"Well, shall we start?" said Noel. "I've brought one of my polo mounts for Peggy," he added to Daisy. "You know the Chimpanzee. He's as quiet as a lamb. Come and give us a send-off! Really you needn't be anxious."
He patted her arm coaxingly, reassuringly, and Hunt-Goring took out his cigarette-case. He was plainly bored to extinction.
Daisy left him with a smiling apology. She did not suggest that he should accompany them, and he did not offer to do so.
"I don't like that man," declared Peggy as Noel bore her away. "He looks so ugly when he smiles."
"Only the Daisies and Peggies of this world manage to look pretty always," observed Noel gallantly.
For which dainty compliment Daisy frowned upon him. "My vanity days are over," she said, "but do remember that hers are yet to come!"
They went round to the front of the bungalow where Noel had left the mounts; and after a good deal of discussion and many injunctions Peggy was, to her huge delight, perched astride the Chimpanzee, a creature of almost human intelligence who plainly took a serious view of his responsibilities, to Daisy's immense relief.
She watched them ride away together at length at a walking pace, Noel on his tall Waler leading the polo-pony, from whose back Peggy waved her an ardent farewell; and finally went back to her guest feeling reassured. Noel evidently had no intention of taking any risks with Peggy in his charge.
"It's very good of him," she remarked, as she sat down again on the verandah.
Hunt-Goring opened his eyes a quarter of an inch. "I beg your pardon?"