"It may not be usual, Lord Brasset, but Mrs. Fitz is not a usual woman."
"My dear Irene," said I, judicially—Mrs. Arbuthnot rejoices in the classical name of Irene—"my dear Irene, I understand Brasset to mean that there is nothing in the articles of association of the Crackanthorpe Hunt to provide against the contingency of Mrs. Fitz or any other British matron overriding hounds as often as she likes."
Although I have had no regular legal training beyond having once lunched in the hall of Gray's Inn, everybody knows my uncle the judge. But I regret to say that this weighty deliverance did not meet with entire respect in the quarter in which it was entitled to look for it.
"That is nonsense, Odo," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "I am sure the Quorn——"
Brasset's misery assumed so acute a phase at the mention of the Quorn that Mrs. Arbuthnot paused sympathetically.
"The Quorn—my God!" muttered the Bayard at the breakfast table in an aside to the tea-kettle.
"Or the Cottesmore," continued the undefeated Mrs. Arbuthnot, "would not stand such behaviour from a person like Mrs. Fitz."
"Do you think so, Mrs. Arbuthnot?" said the noble Master. "You see, we shouldn't like to get our names up by doing something unusual."
"An unusual person must be dealt with in an unusual way," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with great sententiousness.
"Mary Catesby thinks——"