On the day after he had received Lady Maud’s note, Mr. Van Torp rode out by himself.  No one, judging from his looks, would have taken him for a good rider.  He rode seldom, too, never talked of horses, and was never seen at a race.  When he rode he did not even take the trouble to put on gaiters, and, after he had bought Oxley Paddox, the first time that his horse was brought to the door, by a groom who had never seen him, the latter could have sworn that the millionaire had never been on a horse before and was foolishly determined to break his neck.  On that occasion Mr. Van Torp came down the steps, with a big cigar in his mouth, in his ordinary clothes, without so much as a pair of straps to keep his trousers down, or a bit of a stick in his hand.  The animal was a rather ill-tempered black that had arrived from Yorkshire two days previously in charge of a boy who gave him a bad character.  As Mr. Van Torp descended the steps with his clumsy gait, the horse laid his ears well back for a moment and looked as if he meant to kick anything within reach.  Mr. Van Torp looked at him in a dull way, puffed his cigar, and made one remark in the form of a query.

‘He ain’t a lamb, is he?’

‘No, sir,’ answered the groom with sympathetic alacrity, ’and if I was you, sir, I wouldn’t—­’

But the groom’s good advice was checked by an unexpected phenomenon.  Mr. Van Torp was suddenly up, and the black was plunging wildly as was only to be expected; what was more extraordinary was that Mr. Van Torp’s expression showed no change whatever, the very big cigar was stuck in his mouth at precisely the same angle as before, and he appeared to be glued to the saddle.  He sat perfectly erect, with his legs perpendicularly straight, and his hands low and quiet.

The next moment the black bolted down the drive, but Mr. Van Torp did not seem the least disturbed, and the astonished groom, his mouth wide open and his arms hanging down, saw that the rider gave the beast his head for a couple of hundred yards, and then actually stopped him short, bringing him almost to the ground on his haunches.

’My Gawd, ‘e’s a cowboy!’ exclaimed the groom, who was a Cockney, and had seen a Wild West show and recognised the real thing.  ’And me thinkin’ ‘e was goin’ to break his precious neck and wastin’ my bloomin’ sympathy on ‘im!’

Since that first day Mr. Van Torp had not ridden more than a score of times in two years.  He preferred driving, because it was less trouble, and partly because he could take little Ida with him.  It was therefore always a noticeable event in the monotonous existence at Torp Towers when he ordered a horse to be saddled, as he did on the day after he had got Lady Maud’s note from Craythew.