"No one questions her riding. She was born and bred in a circus. But a more unmitigated female bounder never jumped through a hoop in pink tights."
It was below the belt, and not only Jodey but Brasset, who, inefficient as he is in most things, is unmistakably a sportsman of the first class, also felt it to be so.
"Mrs. Fitz has foreign ways," said the noble Master, "but she can be as nice as anybody when she likes. I've known her be awfully civil."
"She is not without charm," said I, feeling that it was up to me to play up a bit.
"She's it," said Jodey. "She's the sort of woman that would make a chap——"
"Shoot himself," chirruped the noble Master.
Disgust and indignation are mild terms to apply to Mrs. Catesby's wrath.
"Pair of boobies! You are as bad as he is, Reggie. But it was always so like your poor mother to take things lying down."
"Oh, come now, Mrs. Catesby, haven't I said all along that she had no right to hit me over the head with her crop?"
"The safest place in which to hit you, anyway." The Great Lady was in peril of losing her temper.