“Up against what?” he asked.
She laughed joyously.
“Up against the stupidity of our class. I bar stupid gentlemen and clever bounders. Some of the cleverest bound like kangaroos. Now you see, Mr. Lionel Pomfret, that my choice is very much limited. Probably I shall die an old maid, and leave my money to found an Institution for brightening Aristocratic Wits.”
They were riding together when this talk took place. They rode out each day, making for the moors of the New Forest, where a horseman can gallop for miles and not leave heather or grass. Upon this occasion they had strayed further afield than usual, and were likely to be late for luncheon. Lionel glanced at his watch, and said so, adding “I can show you a short cut through the woods.”
They turned their horses’ heads homewards and passed through a Forest Enclosure, where Lionel pointed out some fallow-bucks. Crossing a “gutter,” where the clayey soil was soft, he found deer-tracks, and taught her the difference between the slot of a buck and a doe. Information of any sort, she assimilated quickly and gratefully. But a little more time was wasted over this object lesson. Beyond the enclosure was some open ground and another enclosure. After that the forest was left behind, and the riders were on private property. A line of gates led to the high-road to Nether-Applewhite. Unfortunately the last gate was padlocked. Lionel glanced at the fence, a stiff but not very formidable obstacle.
“Can my horse jump?” asked Lady Margot.
“I don’t know,” he replied, doubtfully.
“We’ll soon find out.”
Before he could stop her, she put her mare at the fence, and popped over. Lionel joined her, delighted with her pluck. Without a lead, in cold blood, on a strange mount, she had negotiated triumphantly a rather nasty place. When he complimented her, she said carelessly:
“I love excitements.”