“Will you—ride—some day?” Sên persisted.
Ivy flushed. “I am teaching most of the time, Mr. Sên, or trying to,” she told him.
“Nonsense! And untrue!” Lady Snow cried. “Don’t dare to pretend you are not at your own perfect liberty all the time. My cousin helps me—when she wishes—with my kiddies. You must see them, at lunch, some day soon. They are dears. But Ivy is as free to junket as I am—freer—and she’s a little cat to pretend she isn’t. It’s one of her affectations—just to tease me. And you need not lend her a mount—we have quite a decent one, she and I, between us, just eating his head off—a groom has to give it enough exercise to keep it on its legs. I never ride except when my husband takes me and makes me, because it’s one of the things I do not care for at all. And Ivy won’t—because she’s contrary. But Wolf carries her perfectly. So——”
“So—perhaps—some day—Miss Gilbert will give me the pleasure,” Sên King-lo said, and dismissed it. For he saw that Miss Gilbert had no wish to ride with him—and he himself cared very little either way. He turned to Sir Charles to speak of something quite else, but Lady Snow spoke before he could.
“Do you ride much?” she asked.
“Fairly often,” he told her.
“Have you ridden with Mrs. Gunter? I think no one here rides as well as she does—no one I’ve seen.”
“No,” Sên said. “I have ridden to hounds in England, but, except for that, I never have ridden with any lady. Here I have a quick canter by myself, sometimes at daybreak.”
“How perfectly awful!” his hostess groaned—quite sincerely. “At daybreak! Mr. Sên, how can you?”
“We are all early risers—we Chinese,” he told her.