Buxom Mrs. Asterley rivalled the Dowager in exuberance, and contrived to be caught and kissed at blindman's buff oftener than she need have been, in the hope of rousing some lurking demon of jealousy in her husband's breast. But Captain Asterley only resembled Othello insomuch that he was not easily jealous; so the harmony of the evening was not interrupted by his evil passions.
Next morning came the fox-hunt. Lady Judith and her lover both rode to hounds, and his lordship sent a couple of led nags in their train, while he contrived to find a decent mount for Miss Vansittart. Judith rode as straight as an arrow, and, reckless in this as in all things, went at the biggest fence with a careless easy grace which delighted her lover.
"I did not know you were a hunting-woman," he said, as they rode neck and neck across a field.
"I am an everything woman. I should have died of the spleen at Ringwood, if I had not hunted."
"You did not while I was there."
"You were there; and I had something else to think about."
"And yet you seemed so cold, so indifferent," he said, slackening his pace as he grew more earnest.
"I had so much to hide, love, I had need to put on a show of scorn. Come on, sir; we shall lose the hounds if you talk to me."
The Christmas week was nearly over. It was the thirtieth of December. Lord and Lady Bolingbroke had joined the party: the lady something of an invalid, but infinitely gracious and devoted to her husband, who loved her passionately, yet delighted in boasting of his old conquests in her presence, a self-glorification which she suffered with much good-humour. Nor was she offended at his exuberant compliments to his old flirt, Lady Judith, whom he reminded how pleasantly they had got on together at Ringwood Abbey, when his wife was nursing her gout at the Bath. He had elegant compliments even for Lady Polwhele, whose white lead had been laid on thicker than ever in his honour, and whose family diamonds blazed upon a bosom of more than Flemish development. He had not succeeded in bringing the poet. Mr. Pope had an invalid mother in his house at Twitnam, and could not trust himself away from home for above twenty-four hours at a time. There was some disappointment at his non-arrival, yet a general feeling of relief. Those bright observant eyes saw too deep into the follies and pettinesses of society.