“Yes.  You see, we can’t afford to keep a servant,” said Dinah.  “And I groom Rupert—­that’s the hunter—­too, when Billy isn’t at home.  I like doing that.  He’s such a beauty.”

“Do you ever ride him?” asked Eustace.

She shook her head.  “No.  I’d love to, of course, but there’s never any time.  I can’t spend as long as I like over grooming him because there are so many other things.  But he generally looks very nice,” she spoke with pride; “quite as nice as any of the de Vignes’s horses.”

“You must have a very busy time of it,” said Scott.

“Yes.”  Dinah’s bright face clouded a little.  “I often wish I had more time for other things; but it’s no good wishing.  Anyway, I’ve had my time out here, and I shall never forget it.”

“You must come out again with us,” said Isabel.

Dinah beamed.  “Oh, how I should love it!” she said.  “But—­” her face fell again—­“I don’t believe mother will ever spare me a second time.”

“All right.  I’ll run away with you in the yacht,” said Eustace.  “Come for a trip in the summer!”

She looked at him with shining eyes.  “It’s not a bit of good thinking about it,” she said.  “But oh, how lovely it would be!”

He laughed, looking at her with that gleam in his eyes that she had come to know as exclusively her own.  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said.  “If you have the will, you can leave the way to me.”

She drew a quick breath.  Her heart was beating rather fast.  “All right,” she said.  “I’ll come.”

“Is it a promise?” said Eustace.

She shook her head instantly.  “No.  I never make promises.  They have a way of spoiling things so.”

“Exactly my own idea,” he said.  “Never turn a pleasure into a duty, or it becomes a burden at once.  Well, I must go and make myself pretty for this evening’s show.  If I’m very bored, I shall come and sit out with you.”

“Not to-night,” said Isabel with quick decision.  “Dinah is going to bed very soon.”

“Really?” He stood by Dinah’s couch, looking down at her with his faint supercilious smile.  “Do you submit to that sort of tyranny?” he said.

She held up her hand to him.  “It isn’t tyranny.  It is the very dearest kindness in the world.  Don’t you know the difference?”

He held the little, confiding hand a moment or two, and she felt his fingers close around it with a strength that seemed as if it encompassed her very soul.  “There are two ways of looking at everything,” he said.  “But I shouldn’t be too docile if I were you; not, that is, if you want to get any fun out of life.  Remember, life is short.”

He let her go with the words, straightened himself to his full, splendid height, and sauntered with regal arrogance to the door.

“I want you, Stumpy,” he said, in passing.  “There are one or two letters for you to deal with.  You can come to my room while I dress.”