"You're only a bit out of practice," she said, pretending not to notice his little gasps for breath.
"Shall we have the supper ones?" she said. "I've kept them for you, and one square in the second half."
"Certainly, certainly," Frank Lawless replied, scratching his initials on her programme, "but don't be late for supper. Draughty, dangerous things dances," and he shook his head disapprovingly.
Chris Hannen, who had long had his suspicions of Miss Lossie's intentions on the Professor (failing Carlton Mackrell), strolled up, intent on mischief, and Lossie, pretending to see a friend in the distance, left the two men together.
"Rather out of training, eh, Professor?" said Chris chaffingly. "Not quite clean inside, as they say. Come down to Epsom for a few days, and ride a gallop or two; do you a world of good."
The Professor shuddered.
"I have not ridden for some years," he said, "though I was considered a good horseman as a boy. Not across country," he explained. "I used to ride every day in the park."
"On a fat pony with a leading rein, no doubt," Chris thought to himself.
"I never jumped anything," the Professor went on earnestly, "but I could hold my own on the flat—"
"Of your back," Chris supplemented.