‘Well, my dear, if you like him to do so I’ve no objection. I’ve promised you a horse, and I won’t go from my bargain. Come, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll write you a cheque for a hundred, and you and Standish can settle the business between you. If he’s clever enough to get a good horse for seventy-five, you can spend the difference on a new gown. You’re never tired of getting new gowns.’
Mr. Piper wrote the cheque and went his way, with a mind untainted by jealousy. He trusted this pretty young wife of his with the guardianship of his honour, as implicitly as he had trusted homely middle-aged Mrs. Piper the first. He knew that Bella was not faultless. He was far from feeling perfect satisfaction with all her ways. He knew that she was spending his money like water. But the hideous idea that she could dishonour him, were it only in thought, had not yet poisoned his peace.
The cheque was written on a Thursday, and in the afternoon Captain Standish appeared among the commercial aristocracy who now recognised Mrs. Piper’s Thursday afternoons as a pleasant way of wasting a couple of hours, airing their self-importance, and exercising their carriage horses.
‘Has Piper consented to your hunting this season?’ asked the captain, eagerly.
He was just so much in love as to feel that the hunting-field would be an arid waste without Bella.
‘He has consented to my riding, and he has given me a hundred pounds to buy a horse. Here is the cheque, and if you really don’t mind the trouble of choosing one——’
‘You shall have the handsomest horse in Yorkshire,’ said the captain, putting the cheque in his waistcoat pocket.
‘But a hundred pounds won’t be enough for that, will it?’ asked Bella. ‘One hears of such extravagant prices being given for horses now-a-days.’
‘It will be quite enough, as I shall manage.’
‘Ah, you are so clever about horse-flesh. Our coachman says the horses you ride are something wonderful.’