stitches. During the last eight or nine days
their hours had been chiefly spent on horseback, but some margin had
always been left for this more difficult sort of companionship, which,
however, Gwendolen had not found disagreeable. She was very well
satisfied with Grandcourt. His answers to her lively questions about
what he had seen and done in his life, bore drawling very well. From
the first she had noticed that he knew what to say; and she was
constantly feeling not only that he had nothing of the fool in his
composition, but that by some subtle means he communicated to her the
impression that all the folly lay with other people, who did what he
did not care to do. A man who seems to have been able to command the
best, has a sovereign power of depreciation. Then Grandcourt's behavior
as a lover had hardly at all passed the limit of an amorous homage
which was inobtrusive as a wafted odor of roses, and spent all its
effects in a gratified vanity. One day, indeed, he had kissed not her
cheek but her neck a little below her ear; and Gwendolen, taken by
surprise, had started up with a marked agitation which made him rise
too and say, "I beg your pardon--did I annoy you?" "Oh, it was
nothing," said Gwendolen, rather afraid of herself, "only I cannot
bear--to be kissed under my ear." She sat down again with a little
playful laugh, but all the while she felt her heart beating with a
vague fear: she was no longer at liberty to flout him as she had
flouted poor Rex. Her agitation seemed not uncomplimentary, and he had
been contented not to transgress again.

To-day a slight rain hindered riding; but to compensate, a package had
come from London, and Mrs. Davilow had just left the room after
bringing in for admiration the beautiful things (of Grandcourt's
ordering) which lay scattered about on the tables. Gwendolen was just
then enjoying the scenery of her life. She let her hands fall on her
lap, and said with a pretty air of perversity--

"Why is to-morrow the only day?"

"Because the next day is the first with the hounds," said Grandcourt.

"And after that?"

"After that I must go away for a couple of days--it's a bore--but I
shall go one day and come back the next." Grandcourt noticed a change
in her face, and releasing his hand from under his knees, he laid it on
hers, and said, "You object to my going away?"

"It's no use objecting," said Gwendolen, coldly. She was resisting to
the utmost her temptation to tell hi