"No; thanks. It's going to rain."
"Nothing of the sort; and Rupert is so anxious. He would have come himself, only my lady is ill to-day with one of her bad headaches, and asked him to read her to sleep; and, like the good boy that he is in the main, though shockingly lazy, he obeyed. Do come, Aileen; there's a dear! Don't be selfish."
Miss Jocyln rose rather abruptly.
"I have no desire to be selfish, Miss Everard. If you will wait ten minutes whilst I dress, I will accompany you to Thetford Towers."
She rang the bell and swept from the room, stately and uplifted. May looked after her, fidgeting a little.
"Dear me! I suppose she's offended now at that word 'selfish.' I never did get on very well with Aileen Jocyln, and I'm afraid I never shall. I shouldn't wonder if she were jealous."
Miss Everard laughed a little silvery laugh all to herself, and slapped her kid riding-boot with her pretty toy whip.
"I hope I didn't interrupt a tender declaration that night in the conservatory, but it looked like it. If I did, I am sure Rupert has had fifty chances since, and I know he hasn't availed himself of them, or Aileen would never wear that dissatisfied face. I know she's in love with him, though, to be sure, she would see me impaled with the greatest pleasure if she only thought I suspected it; but I'm not so certain about him. He's a great deal too indolent in the first place, to get up a grand passion for anybody, and I think he's inclined to look graciously on me—poor little me—in the second. You may spare yourself the trouble, my dear Sir Rupert; for a gentleman whose chief aim in existence is to smoke Turkish pipes and lie on the grass and write and read poetry is not at all the sort of man I mean to bless for life."
The two girls descended to the court-yard, mounted and rode off. Both rode well, and both looked their best on horseback, and made a wonderfully pretty picture as they galloped through St. Gosport in dashing style, bringing the admiring population in a rush to doors and windows. Perhaps Sir Rupert Thetford thought so, too, as he stood at the great front entrance to receive them, with a kindling light in his artist's eyes.
"May said she would fetch you, and May always keeps her word," he said, as he walked slowly up the sweeping staircase; "besides, Aileen, I am to have the first sitting for the 'Rosamond and Eleanor' to-day, am I not? May calls me an idle dreamer, a useless drone in the busy human hive; so, to vindicate my character and cleave a niche in the temple of fame, I am going to immortalize myself over this painting."