utumn of 1899, when he
stole over from Oxford for the Cambridgeshire. He paused at the door to
give his wife a kiss, and put a flask of port into his pocket.

"Don't overtire your leg, Val, and don't bet too much."

With the pressure of her chest against his own, and her eyes looking into
his, Val felt both leg and pocket safe. He should be moderate; Holly was
always right--she had a natural aptitude. It did not seem so remarkable
to him, perhaps, as it might to others, that--half Dartie as he was--he
should have been perfectly faithful to his young first cousin during the
twenty years since he married her romantically out in the Boer War; and
faithful without any feeling of sacrifice or boredom--she was so quick,
so slyly always a little in front of his mood. Being first cousins they
had decided, rather needlessly, to have no children; and, though a little
sallower, she had kept her looks, her slimness, and the colour of her
dark hair. Val particularly admired the life of her own she carried on,
besides carrying on his, and riding better every year. She kept up her
music, she read an awful lot--novels, poetry, all sorts of stuff. Out on
their farm in Cape colony she had looked after all the "nigger" babies
and women in a miraculous manner. She was, in fact, clever; yet made no
fuss about it, and had no "side." Though not remarkable for humility,
Val had come to have the feeling that she was his superior, and he did
not grudge it--a great tribute. It might be noted that he never looked
at Holly without her knowing of it, but that she looked at him sometimes
unawares.

He had kissed her in the porch because he should not be doing so on the
platform, though she was going to the station with him, to drive the car
back. Tanned and wrinkled by Colonial weather and the wiles inseparable
from horses, and handicapped by the leg which, weakened in the Boer War,
had probably saved his life in the War just past, Val was still much as
he had been in the days of his courtship; his smile as wide and charming,
his eyelashes, if anything, thicker and darker, his eyes screwed up under
them, as bright a grey, his freckles rather deeper, his hair a little
grizzled at the sides. He gave the impression of one who has lived
actively with horses in a sunny climate.

Twisting the car sharp round at the gate, he said:

"When is young Jon coming?"

"To-day."

"Is there anything you want for him? I could bring it down on Saturda