Colney remarked: ‘I was a poet—for once.’
A neat-legged Parisianly-booted lady, having the sea, winds very enterprising with her dark wavy, locks and jacket and skirts, gave a cry of pleasure and—a silvery ‘You dear!’ at sight of Nesta; then at sight of one of us, moderated her tone to a propriety equalling the most conventional. ‘We ride to-day?’
‘I shall be one,’ said Nesta.
‘It would not be the commonest pleasure to me, if you were absent.’
‘Till eleven, then!’
‘After my morning letter to Ned.’
She sprinkled silvery sound on that name or on the adieu, blushed, blinked, frowned, sweetened her lip-lines, bit at the underone, and passed in a discomposure.
‘The lady?’ Colney asked.
‘She is—I meet her in the troop conducted by the riding-master: Mrs. Marsett.’
‘And who is Ned?’