“Harmless, anyway!” commented Nap, with a sneer.

“Yes, quite harmless,” assented Bertie, looking straight at him.

“And very interesting, no doubt,” said Lady Carfax, turning towards her mount.

Ralph moved to assist her, but Nap pushed before him.  “My job, I think,” he drawled, with that in his face which made the English youth draw sullenly back.

“Cad!” whispered Dot fiercely.

And Bertie from his perch above her laughed through clenched teeth.

In a few minutes more the hunt was off.  The whole crowd streamed briskly away, hounds leading, horses, motors, carriages, and the usual swarm of pedestrians, following in promiscuous array.

The sun shone through a mist.  The weather was perfect for hunting, but looked as if it might end in rain.

Sir Giles rode with the master.  He seemed in better spirits than usual.  His customary scowl had lifted.

His wife rode nearer the end of the procession with Nap Errol next to her.  His brother was immediately behind them, a very decided frown on his boyish face, a frown of which in some occult fashion Nap must have been aware, for as they reached a stretch of turf and the crowd widened out, he turned in the saddle.

“Get on ahead, Bertie!  I can’t stand you riding at my heels.”

Bertie looked at him as if he had a retort ready, but he did not utter it.  With tightened lips he rode past and shot ahead.

Nap smiled a little.  “That young puppy is the best of the Errol bunch,” he said.  “But he hasn’t been licked enough.  It’s not my fault.  It’s my brother’s.”

“He looks a nice boy,” Anne said.

Nap’s smile became supercilious.  “He is a nice boy, Lady Carfax.  But nice boys don’t always make nice men, you know.  They turn into prigs sometimes.”

Anne diverted the subject with an instinctive feeling that it was one upon which they might not agree.

“There is a considerable difference between you?” she asked.

“Eight years,” said Nap.  “I am thirty, Lucas five years older.  Most people take me for the eldest of the lot.”

“I wonder why?” said Anne.

He shrugged his shoulders.  “It is not really surprising, is it?  Lucas has been on the shelf for the past ten years and I”—­he glanced at her shrewdly—­“have not!”

“Oh!” said Anne, and asked no more.

For the first time the definite question arose in her mind as to whether in admitting this man to her friendship she had made a mistake.  He had a disquieting effect upon her, she was forced to acknowledge.

Yet as they drifted apart in the throng she knew with unalterable conviction that the matter did not rest with her.  From the outset the choice had not been hers.

He had entered the gates of her lonely citadel on the night of the Hunt Ball, and though she was by no means sure that she liked him there, she fully realised that it was too late now to try to bar him out.