'ly good race. I was at school
with George. Charmin' fellow, old George."

In Mrs. Bellew's eyes something seemed to stir down in the depths, but
young Maydew was looking at his glove. The handle of the carriage had
left a mark that saddened him.

"You know him well, I suppose, old George?"

"Very well."

"Some fellows, if they have a good thing, keep it so jolly dark. You
fond of racin', Mrs. Bellew?"

"Passionately."

"So am I." And his eyes continued, 'It's ripping to like what you like,'
for, hypnotised, they could not tear themselves away from that creamy
face, with its full lips and the clear, faintly smiling eyes above the
high collar of white fur.

At the terminus his services were refused, and rather crestfallen, with
his hat raised, he watched her walk away. But soon, in his cab, his face
regained its normal look, his eyes seemed saying to the little mirror,
'Look at me come, look at me--can anyone be better fed?'

CHAPTER VII

SABBATH AT WORSTED SKEYNES

In the white morning-room which served for her boudoir Mrs. Pendyce sat
with an opened letter in her lap. It was her practice to sit there on
Sunday mornings for an hour before she went to her room adjoining to
put on her hat for church. It was her pleasure during that hour to do
nothing but sit at the window, open if the weather permitted, and look
over the home paddock and the squat spire of the village church rising
among a group of elms. It is not known what she thought about at those
times, unless of the countless Sunday mornings she had sat there with
her hands in her lap waiting to be roused at 10.45 by the Squire's
entrance and his "Now, my dear, you'll be late!" She had sat there till
her hair, once dark-brown, was turning grey; she would sit there until
it was white. One day she would sit there no longer, and, as likely as
not, Mr. Pendyce, still well preserved, would enter and say, "Now, my
dear, you'll be late!" having for the moment forgotten.

But this was all to be expected, nothing out of the common; the same
thing was happening in hundreds of country houses throughout the "three
kingdoms," and women were sitting waiting for their hair to turn white,
who, long before, at the altar of a fashionable church, had parted with
their imaginations and all the changes and chances of this mortal life.

Round her chair "the dear dogs" lay--this was their practice too, and
now and again the Skye (he was getting very old) would put out