The two gentlemen met in a condition that forbade formal welcome between host and guest.
“Did you see that—madwoman?” cries Sir Harry, his eyes glaring over purple cheeks.
“By the Lord, yes!” says Greville, even his cool blood beating fast. “And a finer sight I never saw—woman and horse alike.”
“You’ll see her brought home on a shutter as sure as I stand here. Go down the park, Bates, and be ready.”
“I back the lady!” Greville turned and ran sharp for the paling above the ha-ha that commanded the park, Sir Harry pounding in the rear. “I back the horse!” he got out between his gasps, and fixed the bet at fifty guineas with what breath was left. Greville took him.
She grazed a chestnut and stooped her head on the beast’s neck to avoid the sweeping branches, and Greville quaked for his guineas. They swept round the lake, and now she got her whip ready and cut him mercilessly till he went like the devil. She put him at the long steep slope and flogged him up it, and, to make a long story short, wit conquered wind and it was not too long before he knew he was beat. And still she did not spare him. Down the slope, but turned and up again, until he stopped dead, dropping his ears, running with sweat, a conquered brute.
So she let him stand awhile, herself now drooping on the saddle, languid from the fierce struggle, and there they stood like weariness itself on the green sward with the trees above him. At last, she turned him towards home and walked him very slowly back to where the two men were waiting.
It may be supposed Sir Harry was not in the best of tempers—a hundred guineas to pay for an afternoon’s contradiction sweetens no man’s blood—but he had found time to say the needful about Greville’s visit before the wearied pair came up to them, and Greville time to think himself lucky his excitement had stood him fifty guineas to the good. He was curious to see the girl’s face. Of course Sir Harry’s oaths and the general course of events had taught him the lady’s situation.
“Mrs. Hart, I conclude?” he questioned.
“The same, and a man deserves what he gets for saddling himself with a—. If he spent his whole substance on a jilt like that, he’d get nothing for his pains but ingratitude and worry to drive him mad.”