"Yes. I'm going to write now."
"Well, then," said French, "I'll do the same and write to her myself."
* * * * *
On the morning of the 13th, when the men had departed, Mr. French for Epsom, with the horse, and Mr. Dashwood to Hollborough to bail out the bailiff, Miss Grimshaw found herself alone and, for the first time in many months, lonely. The society of women can never make up to a woman for the society of men, and the society of men can never make up to a man for the society of women. French and Dashwood had taken away a genial something with them; the place seemed deserted.
She had grown fond of them both, extremely fond of them, and if she had cross-questioned herself on the subject, she could not have discovered, I think, which man she cared for most as a companion. Bobby Dashwood had youth on his side, and youth appeals to youth; but then French had experience—though it had never done him much good—and personality. There was a lot of sunlight about Michael French; one felt better for his presence, and, though he would knock a man down for two pins, though he made sport out of debt and debts over sport, and drank whisky enough to shock the modern tea-and-toast and barley-water man, he was a Christian when it came to practice, and a friend whom no disaster could alienate.
I cannot help lingering over him, for he belongs to a race of men who are growing fewer in an age when coldness and correctness of character veil, without in the least diminishing, the essential brutality and savagery of man.
Miss Grimshaw, left to herself, made a tour of the rooms, set Effie some sums to keep her quiet, and then retired into the sitting-room and shut the door.
It was now that the really desperate condition of things that underlay the comedy of Garryowen appeared before her unveiled.
"If the horse does not win?"