"I suppose the reflection that the offspring might resemble Grandma Maxwell tends to counteract the glamour of the four millions," remarked one of the group, Gerald Marcy, a middle-aged bachelor with a partiality for cynical sallies—also an ex-master of the hounds and one of the veterans of the colony. He was mounted on a solid roan hunter slightly but becomingly grizzled like himself. Thereupon he gave a twist to his mustache, as he was apt to do after uttering what he thought was a good thing. Most of the Westfield Hunt Club were clean-shaven young men who regarded a mustache as a hirsute superfluity. The nucleus of the club had been formed twenty years previous—in the late seventies—at which time it was the fashion to wear hair on the face, but of the small band of original members some had grown too stout or too shaky to hunt, most had families which forbade them to run the risk of breaking their necks, and others were dead.
Mrs. Cole's reply was uttered so that only Marcy heard it. Perhaps she feared to shock the smooth-shaven younger men, for, though she prided herself on her complete sophistication in regard to the world and its ways, one evidence of it was that she suited her conversation to the person with whom she was talking. There are points of view which a young matron can discuss with a middle-aged bachelor which might embarrass or be misinterpreted by less experienced males. So she caused her pony to bound a little apart before she said to Marcy, who followed her:
"I doubt very much if children of her own are included in Lydia's scheme of life."
Mrs. Cole was a bright-eyed, vivacious woman, who talked fast and cleverly. She was fond of making paradoxical remarks, and of defending her theses stoutly. She glanced sideways at her companion to observe the effect of this animadversion, then, bending, patted the neck of her palfrey caressingly. She was herself the mother of two chubby infants, and, out of deference to domestic claims, she no longer followed the hounds, but simply took a morning spin to the meets on a safe hack.
Marcy smiled appreciatively. As a man of the world he felt bound to do this, yet as a man of the world he felt shocked at the hypothesis. Race suicide was in his eyes a cardinal sin compared with which youthful indiscretions resulting from hot blood appeared trifling and normal. Besides, it was deliberate rebellion against the vested rights of man. This latter consideration gave the cue to his slightly dogged answer.
"I rather think that Herbert Maxwell would have something to say about that."
Mrs. Cole surveyed him archly, meditating a convincing retort, when suddenly a new group of riders appeared over the crest of an intervening hill. "Here they are!" she cried with a gusto which proclaimed that the opportunity for subtle confabulation on the point at issue was at an end.
The newcomers, all ardent hunting spirits—Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Cunningham, Miss Peggy Blake, Miss Lydia Arnold, Guy Perry and Herbert Maxwell—came speeding forward at a brisk gallop. Mrs. Cunningham—May Cunningham—was a short, dumpy woman, amiable and popular, but hard featured, as though she had burned the candle in social comings and goings in her youth, which indeed was the case. But since her marriage she had by way of settling down fixed her energies on cross-country riding, and was familiarly known as the mother of the hunt. She had an excellent seat. She and her husband, a burly sportsman whose ruling passion was to reduce his weight below two hundred pounds, and whose predilection for gaudy effects in waistcoats and stocks always pushed the prevailing fashion hard, were prime movers in the Westfield set. They had no children, and, as Mrs. Cole once said, it sometimes seemed as though the hounds took the place of them.
Miss Peggy Blake was a breezy Amazon, comely, long-limbed and enthusiastic, of many adjectives but simple soul, whose hair was apt to tumble down at inopportune moments, but who stuck at nothing which promised fresh physical exhilaration. Guy Perry, a young broker who had made a fortune in copper stocks, was one of her devoted swains. But dashingly as she rode, her carriage lacked Lydia Arnold's distinction and witchery. Indeed, that slight, dainty young person seemed a part of the animal, so gracefully and jauntily did she follow the movements of her rangy, spirited thoroughbred. When Gerald Marcy exclaimed fervently, "By Jove, but she rides well!" no one of the awaiting group was doubtful as to whom he meant.
Keeping as close to his Dulcinea as he could, but not quite abreast, came Herbert Maxwell, a rather lumbering equestrian. Fashion had led him, the previous season, as a young man with great possessions, to follow the hounds, but sedately, as became a somewhat sober novice. Love now spurred him to take the highest stone walls, and for the purpose he had bought a couple of famous hunters. He had long ago dismissed both fear and caution, and had eyes only for the nape of Miss Arnold's neck as they sped over hill and dale. Twice in the last six weeks he had come a cropper, as the phrase is, and been cut up a bit, but he still rode valiantly, bent on running the risk of a final tumble which would break not his ribs but his heart. In every-day life he appeared large and above the average height, with reddish-brown hair and eyebrows and a somewhat grave countenance—rather a nondescript young man, but entirely unobjectionable; the sort of personality which, as Lydia's friends were saying, a clever woman could mould into a solid if not ornamental social pillar.