"If I didn't want to see Jane ride," Eleanor said, "I would go and bury my shame in the ladies' room. I'm curdled with humiliation."
Jane, on Rajah, in her best riding things, was a pleasant sight. Brat had never seen her in anything but the shabby jodhpurs and shapeless jersey that she wore at home, and was surprised by this trim little figure.
"Jane has the best seat of all the Ashbys," Eleanor said affectionately, watching the serious and efficient Jane making Rajah change his leg to order. "That is her only rival: that tall girl on the grey."
The tall girl was fifteen and the grey very handsome, but the judges preferred Jane and Rajah. Jane might have lost for all the emotion she showed, but Ruth was rapturous.
"Good old Jane," Simon said, appearing beside them. "A veteran at nine."
"Oh, Simon, did you see!" Eleanor said, in agony again as she remembered.
"Cheer up, Nell," he said, dropping a commiserating hand on her shoulder. "It might have been worse."
"How could it be worse?"
"He didn't yodel," Simon said.
At that she began to laugh, and went on laughing. "Oh, I suppose it is very funny," she said, wiping her eyes, "and I expect I shall laugh over it for years, but at the moment I just wish I could be in Australia for the rest of the afternoon."