“I only hope he hasn’t bored you,” said the good-natured Mrs. Joshua.

“Oh, dear, no,” exclaimed Honora.  “I don’t see bow any one could be bored looking at such magnificent animals as that Hardicanute.”

It was at this moment that her eyes were drawn, by a seemingly resistless attraction, to Mrs. Robert’s face.  Her comment upon this latest conquest, though unexpressed, was disquieting.  And in spite of herself, Honora blushed again.

At luncheon, in the midst of a general conversation, Mr. Spence made a remark sotto voce which should, in the ordinary course of events, have remained a secret.

“Susan,” he said, “your friend Miss Leffingwell is a fascinator.  She’s got Robert’s scalp, too, and he thought it a pretty good joke because I offered to teach her to play golf this afternoon.”

It appeared that Susan’s eyes could flash indignantly.  Perhaps she resented Mr. Spence’s calling her by her first name.

“Honora Leffingwell is the most natural and unspoiled person I know,” she said.

There is, undoubtedly, a keen pleasure and an ample reward in teaching a pupil as apt and as eager to learn as Honora.  And Mr. Spence, if he attempted at all to account for the swiftness with which the hours of that long afternoon slipped away, may have attributed their flight to the discovery in himself of hitherto latent talent for instruction.  At the little Casino, he had bought, from the professional in charge of the course, a lady’s driver; and she practised with exemplary patience the art of carrying one’s hands through and of using the wrists in the stroke.

“Not quite, Miss Leffingwell,” he would say, “but so.”

Honora would try again.

“That’s unusually good for a beginner, but you are inclined to chop it off a little still.  Let it swing all the way round.”

“Oh, dear, how you must hate me!”

“Hate you?” said Mr. Spence, searching in vain for words with which to obliterate such a false impression.  “Anything but that!”

“Isn’t it a wonderful, spot?” she exclaimed, gazing off down the swale, emerald green in the afternoon light between its forest walls.  In the distance, Silver Brook was gleaming amidst the meadows.  They sat down on one of the benches and watched the groups of players pass.  Mr. Spence produced his cigarette case, and presented it to her playfully.

“A little quiet whiff,” he suggested.  “There’s not much chance over at the convent,” and she gathered that it was thus he was pleased to designate Silverdale.

In one instant she was doubtful whether or not to be angry, and in the next grew ashamed of the provincialism which had caused her to suspect an insult.  She took a cigarette, and he produced a gold match case, lighted a match, and held it up for her.  Honora blew it out.

“You didn’t think seriously that I smoked?” she asked, glancing at him.

“Why not?” he asked; “any number of girls do.”