had pressed it,--and was gone. When Lady Macleod returned, she found
that the question of the evening's tea arrangements had settled
itself.

CHAPTER XVI

The Roebury Club

It has been said that George Vavasor had a little establishment at
Roebury, down in Oxfordshire, and thither he betook himself about
the middle of November. He had been long known in this county, and
whether or no men spoke well of him as a man of business in London,
men spoke well of him down there, as one who knew how to ride to
hounds. Not that Vavasor was popular among fellow-sportsmen. It was
quite otherwise. He was not a man that made himself really popular
in any social meetings of men. He did not himself care for the loose
little talkings, half flat and half sharp, of men when they meet
together in idleness. He was not open enough in his nature for such
popularity. Some men were afraid of him, and some suspected him.
There were others who made up to him, seeking his intimacy, but these
he usually snubbed, and always kept at a distance. Though he had
indulged in all the ordinary pleasures of young men, he had never
been a jovial man. In his conversations with men he always seemed to
think that he should use his time towards serving some purpose of
business. With women he was quite the reverse. With women he could be
happy. With women he could really associate. A woman he could really
love;--but I doubt whether for all that he could treat a woman well.

But he was known in the Oxfordshire country as a man who knew what he
was about, and such men are always welcome. It is the man who does
not know how to ride that is made uncomfortable in the hunting field
by cold looks or expressed censure. And yet it is very rarely that
such men do any real harm. Such a one may now and then get among
the hounds or override the hunt, but it is not often so. Many such
complaints are made; but in truth the too forward man, who presses
the dogs, is generally one who can ride, but is too eager or too
selfish to keep in his proper place. The bad rider, like the bad
whist player, pays highly for what he does not enjoy, and should be
thanked. But at both games he gets cruelly snubbed. At both games
George Vavasor was great and he never got snubbed.

There were men who lived together at Roebury in a kind of club,--four
or five of them, who came thither from London, running backwards and
forwards as hunting arrangements enabled them to do so,--a brewer or