Mrs. Hoskin-Heath turned to Lord Landsend, who was sitting beside her. Her pretty face wore a roguish smile as she whispered to him.
"Billy, what an awful donkey you must be."
Lord Landsend looked at her for a moment. Then he answered—
"Well, you know, I am not at all sure that it is not a jolly good thing to be sometimes. I would not be that fellow Gouldesbrough for anything."
She looked at him in amusement. There was something quite serious in the young man's face.
"Why," she said, in a whisper, "what do you mean, Billy?"
"I may not be clever," said Lord Landsend, "but I prefer to spend my life doing what amuses me, not what other people think I ought to do. At the same time I know men, and I know that scientific Johnny over there has got something on his mind which I should not care to have. Poor Tommy Decies had that look in his eyes the night before Ascot last year, poor Eustace Charliewood had it just before he went down to Brighton and shot himself; and you may take it from me, Mrs. Hoskin-Heath, that I know what I am talking about."
"And now," said Sir William, looking up and down the rows of faces opposite him. "And now, which of you will submit himself to the next experiment?"
Then Lord Landsend spoke. He was determined to "get his own back," as he would have put it, if possible.
"Why don't you have a try yourself, Sir William," he said, with a not very friendly grin; "or won't what d'you call 'em work for its master? You had my thoughts for nothing, I'll give you twopence for yours."