Count L'Alienado saw barges filled with maidens, like living flowers, four-in-hand tally-hos, crowded with sportive collegians, odd jaunting-cars and donkey-carts got up by the wags, staid family coaches with footmen faced rearward to enjoy the retrospect, and open drags like his own without number, all brilliant with lovely womanhood.
The Violet stood apart from the others, sensuous and exotic—like an orange lily in a garden of snowdrops. But, supreme over all, like a bright light, enhanced by reflectors, shone the loveliness of Rosalie March—pure, placid and faultlessly costumed as ever. The jockeys whispered to one another when her vehicle entered the racing park. An eager look at that moment chased away the slight hauteur of her expression—not unbecoming in one so clearly removed from the common order, and far from approaching disdain. She turned her head toward the stables expectantly.
"Paradise," said the Violet, when they had entered and the carriages circled around the great oval.
"This is something like England," said the earl.
"None the worse for that," smiled Rosalie.
"No. Most of the good things I have seen here are derived from the mother country."
"Do you agree, Count L'Alienado?" asked Rosalie, appealing to the stranger.
"Candor is too sharp a sword to carry about unsheathed," answered Count L'Alienado.
Mme. Violet smiled archly, bringing her Gainsborough brim close to the earl's great face and caressing her spaniel with provoking abandon.
Rosalie's little abstraction since they passed through the gate might easily be understood, for Harry Arnold was entered in the steeplechase for gentlemen riders.