"Are you? So am I. I'm the only one who hunts, you see; but I'm going to school at Easter, then I shan't be lonely any more."
"Are you glad to be going to school?"
"Oh, yes! I shall like being with the other chaps awfully; but, of course, I shall miss my people ... and the dogs, and the pony."
"Your people don't hunt, do they?"
"No; we've only the cob and my pony. Mother doesn't hunt, she's too nervous; and father doesn't care for it. Mother drives to the near meets sometimes, but when it is a long way she likes Jackson to come with me for the day. Not that he's any mortal use," added Billy with a gleeful chuckle. "He's a potterer, and my brother is too little."
"I wonder," the lady began, then stopped suddenly. Billy turned his rosy face towards her, but she did not speak. The child, because he knew one woman so well, divined that this woman was tired and sad. So he, too, was silent. The horses' hoofs went thud, swish, thud, swish, through the foot-deep decaying beech leaves. A delicate silver mist gathered round the roots of the great trees; like the bridal veil of a rosy girl, it spread itself over the stretches of ruddy space. They had turned into the grass-carpeted main avenue of the Earl's famous park, and Billy sniffed delightedly at what he called "the good smell of Christmas." Happy Billy! to whom the death of summer brought no sad thoughts.
"I'm afraid you are very tired!" he said suddenly, in his kind boyish voice. "Would you like to stop a bit?"
The lady started. Not, indeed, that she had forgotten Billy; she was in a subconscious way basking in the warmth that radiates from all simple and kindly people. Her rebellious mood of the last weeks had passed. That mood in which she loved to assert her fascination for men; mentally snapping her fingers in the faces of her sister women so ready to think evil of her. Certain kinds of men come to heel easily and she felt her triumph to be but a poor one. This half-hour's companionship of a friendly little boy had altered everything; at the moment she no longer felt herself to be the sport of circumstance; but her heart ached and her voice was weariful as she said:—"No, we won't stop. I am tired, but we are only about three miles from home. You live just outside the town, don't you?"
"Yes! at that tall grey gabled house where the cross roads meet!"
"I have seen you go into the drive. Do you do lessons—who teaches you?"