“Well, even you are better than Uncle George,” says she.  “Now, go on; is there anyone else?  The Heriots!  Who are they?  I heard you speak of them.”

“Ordinary people; but he shoots.  He is a first-class shot.”

“Heriot!  It reminds me——­” Tita grows silent a moment, and now a little flood of colour warms her face.  “I have someone I want to ask, after all,” cries she.  “A cousin—­Tom Hescott.”

“A cousin?”

“Yes.  And he has a sister—­Minnie Hescott.  I should like to ask them both.”  She looks at him.  “They are quite presentable,” says she whimsically.

“Your cousins should be, naturally,” says he.

Yet his heart sinks.  What sort of people are these Hescotts?

“I have not seen them for years,” says Tita—­“never since I lived with my father.  Tom used to be with us always then, but he went abroad.”

“To Australia?”

“Oh no—­to Rome!  To Rome first, at all events; he was going to India after that.”

“For——­”

“Nothing—­nothing at all.  Just to see the world!”

“He must have had a good deal of money!”

“More than was good for him, I often heard.  But I did like Tom; and I heard he was in town last week, and Minnie with him, and I should like very much indeed to ask them here.”

“Well, scribble down their names.”

“I dare say they won’t come,” says Tita, writing.

“Why?”

“Oh, because they know such lots of people.  However, I’ll try them, any way.”  She flings down her pencil.  “There, that’s done; and now I shall go and have a ride before luncheon.”

“You have been riding all the morning!”

“Yes.”

“Do you never get tired?”

“Never!  Come and see if I do.”

“Well, I’ll come,” says Rylton.

"Really!" cries Tita; her eyes grow very bright.  “You mean it?”

“Certainly I do.  It is my place, you know, to see that you don’t overdo it.”

“Oh, how delightful!” says she, clasping her hands.  “I hate riding alone.  We’ll go right over the downs, and back of Scart Hill, and so home.  Come on—­come on,” running out of the room; “don’t be a minute dressing.”

CHAPTER XVI.

HOW A DULL MORNING GIVES BIRTH TO A STRANGE AFTERNOON.  AND HOW RYLTON’S EYES ARE WIDENED BY A FRIEND.

“Good old day!” says Mrs. Chichester disgustedly.  She is sitting near the window in the small drawing-room at Oakdean, watching the raindrops race each other down the panes.

“What’s the matter with it?” asks Mr. Gower, who is standing beside her, much to the annoyance of Captain Marryatt, who is anxious to engage her for some waltzes at the dance old Lady Warbeck is giving in the near future.

“What isn’t the matter with it?” asks Mrs. Chichester, turning her thin shoulders, that always have some queer sort of fascination in them, on Gower.  She gives him a glance out of her blue-green eyes.  She is enjoying herself immensely, in spite of the day, being quite alive to the fact that Captain Marryatt is growing desperate, and that old Miss Gower, whom Tita has insisted on asking to her house party, is thinking dark things of her from the ottoman over there.