He pretends to be offended at her remark does Jack Delamere, and pulls his horse a little away from her own. She notices the movement, and laughs lightly, as she urges her animal alongside him, and taps him gently on the shoulder with her whip.
“Look there, Jack!” she exclaims at the same time; “we are not the first on the course after all. Look at those two riding over the fence alongside the brook. Who are they, I wonder? The woman can ride, it is easy enough to see that.”
They are just turning to the left through the gate leading to the Steeplechase Course on the Burton Flats, and as Jack Delamere’s eyes follow the direction indicated by Flora Desmond, he at once perceives two mounted figures, galloping up the course in the direction of the grand stand. One is a man, the other a woman.
As Flora Desmond has declared, the woman can ride. She sits her horse straight as a dart. He is pulling a bit, but she has him well in hand, and he is not likely to get away with her.
“Hector D’Estrange, by all that’s holy! and with a woman, too,” laughs Jack Delamere. “Look, Florrie! Is the world coming to an end, or am I dreaming?”
“That you are certainly not,” she answers quickly; “there is no mistake about it. But who is she?”
They have joined the others now, and find them equally exercised over the female apparition.
It may be explained that this is the morning of the Melton Hunt Steeplechases, and that this party has ridden over early to the course to go round the fences, and inspect them severally. They had bargained on being the first in the field, but now perceive that they have been forestalled by Hector D’Estrange and his companion.
“Let’s go and have a look,” suggests Lord Westray. He is an admirer of women, and it is easy to perceive, even at the distance which separates the party from the stranger, that she is a fine one.
They all gallop down to the stand, riding along in a row towards Hector and his friend. He sees them coming, and says something to her, and Flora notices that she brings her horse closer to his side. Mrs. Trevor and Lady Manderton are all eyes and stare as they pass the two. Hector has raised his hat politely, and wished them a good-morning. His face is flushed with the exercise of riding, his rich auburn hair shines out like gold in the sunlight, his glorious eyes, dark in their sapphire-blue, look particularly winning and beautiful. But it is with his companion that the eyes of the others are busy. They are all struck by her extreme loveliness, and are loud in wonder as to who she is. Only Lord Westray is silent; white as a sheet, too. It is years since he set eyes on Lady Altai, and now he sees again, after a long lapse of time, the woman whom he so grievously wronged more than twenty-two years before—his divorced wife, Speranza de Lara.