“I have not gone into it,” says Mrs. Bethune, with as distinct a sneer as she can allow herself.

Mr. Gower laughs.

“You’re good at games,” says he to Tita.

He might have meant her powers at tennis, he might have meant anything.

“That last game you are thinking of?”

“Decidedly, the last game,” says Gower, who laughs again immoderately.

“I don’t see what there is to laugh at,” says Miss Bolton, with some indignation. “‘They laugh who win,’ is an old proverb.  But you didn’t win; you weren’t in it.”

“I expect I never shall be,” says Gower.  “Yet lookers-on have their advantage ascribed to them by a pitiful Providence.  They see most of the game.”

“It is I who should laugh,” says Tita, who has not been following him. "I won—­we”—­looking, with an honest desire to be just to all people, at Sir Maurice—­"we won.”

“No, no; leave it in the singular,” says Maurice, making her a little gesture of self-depreciation.

“You seem very active,” says Margaret kindly.  “I watched you at golf yesterday.  You liked it?”

“Yes; there is so little else to like,” says Tita, looking at her, “except my horses and my dogs.”

“A horse is the best companion of all,” says Mr. Woodleigh, his eyes bent on her charming little face.

“I’m not sure, the dogs are so kind, so affectionate; they want one so,” says Tita.  “And yet a horse—­oh, I do love my last mount—­a brown mare!  She’s lying up now.”

“You ride, then?” says Sir Maurice.

“Ride! you bet!” says Tita.  She rolls over on the rug, and, resting on her elbows, looks up at him; Lady Rylton watching, shudders.  “I’ve been in the saddle all my life.  Just before I came here I had a real good run—­my uncle’s groom had one horse, I had the other; it was over the downs. I won.”

She rests her chin upon her hands.

Lady Rylton’s face pales with horror.  A race with a groom!

“Your uncle must give you good mounts,” says Mr. Woodleigh.

“It is all he does give me,” says the girl, with a pout.  “Yes; I may ride, but that is all.  I never see anybody—­there is nobody to see; my uncle knows nobody.”

Lady Rylton makes an effort.  It is growing too dreadful.  She turns to Mrs. Chichester.

“Why don’t you play?” asks she.

“Tennis?  I hate it; it destroys one’s clothes so,” says Mrs. Chichester.  “And those shoes, they are terrible.  If I knew any girls—­I never do know them, as a rule—­I should beg of them not to play tennis; it is destruction so far as feet go.”

“Fancy riding so much as that!” says Mr. Woodleigh, who, with Sir Maurice and the others, has been listening to Tita’s stories of hunts and rides gone and done.  “Why, how long have you been hunting?”

“Ever since I was thirteen,” says Tita.