The Squire had jogged home by himself. His horse was out of condition, and, probably, he wished to give Lionel a chance. Marriages may or may not be made in heaven, but many are comfortably arranged in the hunting-field, and most of these, we fancy, bud and blossom when a man and a maid ride home together after a good run.
Long before Lionel began his tale, Margot’s intuition warned her that the expected would not come to pass. His too cheery manner, revealing rather than concealing nervousness, betrayed him. She remembered the round of golf, and her premonition that Joyce would win the greater game.
Joyce was Euphrosyne.
It is difficult to analyse her feelings at this moment, because she failed to analyse them herself. Nor was this a first experience. She had seen men she liked, men whom she had deliberately considered as possible Prince Consorts, men who had pursued her, grow cold in the chase and drop out. And always she had accepted this philosophically, with a disdainful shrug of the shoulders. Unlike most women, she could shift her point of view with disconcerting swiftness and adroitness. Disconcerting to herself and to others! Boredom inevitably followed fresh excitements. Lionel’s word “mirage” had kept her awake on the night after the cricket match. Was life, for her, a succession of mirages? Would the charm of Pomfret Court fade and vanish if she married Lionel?
She had not answered such questions. Perhaps the kindly sprites whom old-fashioned folk still speak of as “guardian angels” were soaping the ways by which Lionel’s tale might slide into her mind. Nevertheless it would be fatuous to deny that her pride escaped humiliation, although pride saved an unhappy situation for Lionel.
He began hesitatingly:
“You and I are good pals, Margot.”
At this opening doubt vanished. Instantly, with a ripple of laughter, she said quickly:
“You have something to tell me.”