“Getting old, Dick, getting old, like his master,” Rowan said with a touch of pathos. “I hear the Hunt talk of buying me another mount. It is good of them; very good. I am not supposed to know, of course.”
“And so you have come to find something up to your weight, eh?” I went on. He does not, I suppose, ride more than eight stone twelve in his hunting kit. He is the wiriest little man I have ever seen.
“No,” he answered. “I have come to have a last look at Sir Charles Thorold’s stud. It comes under the hammer to-morrow, as, of course, you know.”
“Thorold’s horses to be sold!” I exclaimed. “I had no idea. Then he has said good-bye to Rutland for good and all. I am sorry.”
“So am I, very. He is a man I have always liked. Naturally his name is in rather bad odour in the county just at present, but that does not in the least affect my own regard for him.”
“It wouldn’t,” I said to him. “You are not that sort, Rowan. It is a pity there are not more like you about.”
He changed the subject by asking if I had seen Sir Charles and Lady Thorold lately.
“I have not seen Lady Thorold since the Houghton affair,” I answered. “I have seen Sir Charles, but not to speak to.”
I recollected how I had caught a glimpse of him in that house in Belgrave Street.
“You have heard the latest about Miss Thorold, of course?” he said, as we passed into the Yard, which at this hour—about four o’clock—was crowded with well-dressed men and women.