in
March."

"I thought it very nice. It was fast enough for anybody."

"You might go as fast with a drag, if that's all. I'll tell you
something else. We should have killed him if Maule hadn't once ridden
over the hounds when we came out of the little wood. I spoke very
sharply to him."

"I heard you, Lord Chiltern."

"And I suppose you thought I was a brute."

"Who? I? No, I didn't;--not particularly, you know. Men do say such
things to each other!"

"He doesn't mind it, I fancy."

"I suppose a man does not like to be told that directly he shows
himself in a run the sport is all over and the hounds ought to be
taken home."

"Did I say that? I don't remember now what I said, but I know he made
me angry. Come, let us trot on. They can take the hounds home without
us."

"Good night, Cox," said Miss Palliser, as they passed by the pack.
"Poor Mr. Maule! I did pity him, and I do think he does care for
it, though he is so impassive. He would be with us now, only he is
chewing the cud of his unhappiness in solitude half a mile behind
us."

"That is hard upon you."

"Hard upon me, Lord Chiltern! It is hard upon him, and, perhaps, upon
you. Why should it be hard upon me?"

"Hard upon him, I should have said. Though why it shouldn't be the
other way I don't know. He's a friend of yours."

"Certainly."

"And an especial friend, I suppose. As a matter of course Violet
talks to me about you both."

"No doubt she does. When once a woman is married she should be
regarded as having thrown off her allegiance to her own sex. She is
sure to be treacherous at any rate in one direction. Not that Lady
Chiltern can tell anything of me that might not be told to all the
world as far as I am concerned."

"There is nothing in it, then?"

"Nothing at all."

"Honour bright?"

"Oh,--honour as bright as it ever is in such matters as these."

"I am sorry for that,--very sorry."

"Why so, Lord Chiltern?"

"Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might
have induced him to ride a little less forward."

"Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser, seriously; "I will never again
speak to you a word on any subject except hunting."

At this moment Gerard Maule came up behind them, with a cigar in his
mouth, apparently quite unconscious of any of that displeasure as
to which Miss Palliser had supposed that he was chewing the cud in
solitude. "That was a goodish thing, Chiltern," he said.

"Very good."

"