Eleanor came into the sitting-room as Bee was opening the midday post, and said: “She bumped!”

Bee looked up hazily, her mind still on the contents of her mail.

“She bumped, I tell you. For a whole fifty yards she bumped like a good ’un.”

“The Parslow girl? Oh, congratulations, Nell, dear.”

“I never thought I’d live to see this day. Is no one having sherry?”

“Brat and I have drunk sufficient strange liquids this morning to last us for the rest of the week.”

“How did it go, Brat?” Eleanor asked, pouring herself some sherry.

“Not as badly as I’d been prepared for,” Brat said, watching her thin capable hand manipulating the glasses. That hand wouldn’t lie soft and confidential and insinuating in one’s own.

“Did Docket tell you how he got his wound?”

“Docket was at market,” Bee said. “But we had hot buttered scones from Mrs. Docket.”

“Dear Mrs. Docket. What did Miss Hassell give you?”

“Shortbread. She wasn’t going to give us that, but she succumbed to Brat’s charms.” So Bee had noticed that.

“I’m not surprised,” Eleanor said, looking at Brat over her glass. “And Wigsell?”

“Do you remember that brown horse of Dick Pope’s? The one he swept the board with at Bath last year?”

“Certainly.”

“Gates has bought it for Peggy.”

Eleanor stopped sipping sherry and thought about this in silence for a moment or two.

“For Peggy to show.”

“Yes.”

“Well, well!” said Eleanor slowly: and she looked amused and thoughtful. She looked at Bee, met Bee’s glance, and looked away again. “Well, well!” she said again, and went on sipping sherry. After an interval broken only by the rip of paper as Bee opened envelopes, she said: “I don’t know that that was such a very good move.”

“No,” said Bee, not looking up.

“I’m going to wash. What is for lunch?”

“Goulash.”

“As made by our Mrs. Betts, that is just stew.”

The twins came in from lessons at the Rectory, and Simon from the stables, and they went in to lunch.

Simon had come down so late to breakfast that Brat’s only intercourse with him to-day had been to wish him good morning. He seemed amiable and relaxed, and inquired with what appeared to be genuine interest about the success of the morning. Bee provided an account, with periodic confirmation from Brat. When she came to Wigsell, Eleanor interrupted her to say:

“Did you know that Gates has bought Peggy a new horse?”

“No,” Simon said, looking up with mild interest.

“He has bought her that brown horse of Dick Pope’s.”

“Riding Light?”

“Yes. Riding Light. She is going to show it this year.”

For the first time since he had met him Brat saw Simon Ashby flush. He paused for a moment, and then went on with his lunch. The flush slowly died, and the cool pale profile resumed its normal calm. Both Eleanor and Bee had avoided looking at him while he absorbed the news, but Ruth studied him with interest.

And Brat, eating Mrs. Betts’s goulash, studied him with his mind. Simon Ashby was reputedly crazy about the Gates girl. But was he glad that the girl had been given a good horse? No. He was furious. And what was more, his womenfolk had known that he would be furious. They had known beforehand that he would find Peggy’s entry as a rival unforgivable. They had, understandably, not wanted the Gates affair to last or to become serious; and they had recognised instantly, both of them, that Peggy’s possession of Riding Light had saved them. What kind of creature was this Simon Ashby, who could not bear to be beaten by the girl he was in love with?

He remembered Bee’s inordinate pleasure in the brown horse. He saw again Eleanor’s slow amusement at the news. They had known at once that that was the end of the Peggy affair. Gates had bought that horse to be “upsides” with Latchetts; to give his daughter a mount as good as any owned by the man he hoped she would marry. And all he had done was to destroy any chance that Peggy ever had of being mistress of Latchetts.

Well, Simon was no longer master of Latchetts, so it would not matter to the Gates family that Simon resented Peggy’s possession of the horse. But what kind of heel was Simon that he could not love a rival?

“What is Brat going to ride at the Bures Show,” he heard Eleanor say, and brought his attention back to the lunch table.

“All of them,” Simon said. And as Eleanor looked her question: “They are his horses.”

This was the kind of thing that the English did not say. Simon must be very angry to desert the habit of a lifetime.

“I’m not going to ‘show’ any horses, if that is what you mean,” Brat said. “That requires technique, and I haven’t got it.”

“But you used to be very good,” Bee said.

“Did I? Oh, well, that is a long time ago. I certainly don’t want to show any horses in the ring at Bures.”

“The show isn’t for nearly three weeks yet,” Eleanor said. “Bee could coach you for a day or two, and you’d be as good as ever.”

But Brat was not to be moved. It would have been fun to see what he could do against English horsemen; fun especially to jump the Latchetts horses and perhaps win with them; but he was not going to make any public appearance as Patrick Ashby of Latchetts if he could help it.

“Brat could ride in the races,” Ruth said. “The races they end up with. He could beat everyone on Timber, couldn’t he?”

“Timber is not going to be knocked about in any country bumpkins’ race if I still have any say in the matter,” Simon said, speaking into his plate. “He is going to Olympia, which is his proper place.”

“I agree,” Brat said. An............