Mistress Anne Part 58

"Why not?"

"Oh, d.i.c.ky, can you _ask_?"

Meade's great limousine which had brought them seemed to stare the little car out of countenance. But Richard refused to be embarra.s.sed by the contrast. "She's a snug little craft, and she has carried me miles. What would Meade's car do on these roads and in the hills?"

Pip had come up and as the two men stood together Eve's quick eye contrasted them. There was no doubt of Richard's shabbiness. His old riding coat was much the worse for wear. He had on the wrong kind of hat and the wrong kind of shoes, and he seemed most aggravatingly not to care. He was to ride to-morrow one of the horses which had been sent down from Pip's stables. He hadn't even a proper mount!

Pip, on the other hand, was perfectly groomed. He was s.h.i.+ning and immaculate from the top of his smooth head to the heel of his boots. And he wore an air of gay inconsequence. It seemed to Eve that Richard's shoulders positively sagged with responsibility.

There was a dance at the club that night. Richard, coming in, saw Eve in Pip's arms. They were a graceful pair, and their steps matched perfectly.

Eve was all in white, wide-skirted, and her shoulders and arms were bare.

She had on gold slippers, and her hair was gold. Richard had a sense of discomfort as he watched them. He was going to marry her, yet she was letting Pip look at her like that. His cheeks burned. What was Pip saying? Was he making love to Eve?

He had tried to meet the situation with dignity. Yet there was no dignity in Eve's willingness to let Pip follow her. To speak of it would, however, seem to crystallize his feeling into a complaint.

Hence when he danced with her later, he tried to respond to the lightness and brightness of her mood. He tried to measure up to all the requirements of his position as an engaged man and as a lover. But he did not find it easy.

When he reached home that night, he found little Francois awake, and ready to ask questions about the hunt.

"Do you think they will get him?" he challenged Richard, coming in small pink pajamas to the door of the young doctor's room.

"Get who?"

"Old Pete."

"He is too cunning."

"Will he come through here?"

"Perhaps."

"I shall stick my fingers in my ears and shut my eyes. Are you going to ride with them?"

"Yes."

"You won't let them kill old Pete, will you?"

"Not if I can help it."

After that, the child was more content. But when Richard was at last in bed, Francois came again across the hall, and stood on the threshold in the moonlight. "It would be dreadful if it was his last night."

"Whose last night, Francois?" sleepily.

"Old Pete's."

"Don't worry. And you must go to bed, Francois."

Richard waked to a glorious morning and to the hunt. Pink coats dotted the countryside. It seemed as if half the world was on its way to the club. Richard, as he mounted one of Pip's hunters, a powerful bay, felt the thrill of it all, and when he joined Eve and her party he found them in an uproarious mood.

Presently over hills streamed a picturesque procession--the hounds in the lead, the horses following with riders whose pink blazed against the green of the pines, against the blue of the river, against the fainter blue of the skies above.

And oh, the music of it, the sound of the horn, the bell-like baying, the thud of flying feet!

Then, ahead of them all, as the hounds broke into full cry, a silent, swift shadow--the old fox, Pete!

At first he ran easily. He had done it so often. He had thrown them off after a chase which had stirred his blood. He would throw them off again.

In leisurely fas.h.i.+on he led them. As the morning advanced, however, he found himself hard pushed. He was driven from one stronghold to another.

Tireless, the hounds followed and followed, until at last he knew himself weary, seeking sanctuary.

He came with confidence to Crossroads. Beyond the garden was his den.

Once within and the thing would end.

Across the lawn he loped, and little Francois, anxious at the window, spied him. "Will he get to it, will he get to it?" he said to Nancy, his small face white with the fear of what might happen, "and when he gets there will he be safe?"

"Yes," she a.s.sured him; "and when they have run him aground, they will ride away."

But they did not ride away. It happened that those who were in the lead were unaware of the tradition of the country, and so they began to dig him out, this old king of foxes, who had felt himself secure in his castle!

They set the dogs at one end, and fetched mattocks and spades from the stable.

Pip and Eve were among them. Pip directing, Eve mad with the excitement of it all.

Little Francois, watching, clung to Nancy. "Oh, they can't, they mustn't!"

She soothed him, and at last sent Milly out, but they would not listen.

Nancy and Sulie were as white now as little Francois. "Oh, where is Richard?" Nancy said. "It is like murder to do a thing like that. It is bad enough in the open--but like a rat--in a trap."

The big bay was charging down the hill with Richard yelling at the top of his voice. The bay had proved troublesome and had bolted in the wrong direction, but Richard had brought him back to Crossroads just in time!

Francois screamed. "It is Dr. d.i.c.ky. He'll make them stop. He'll make them."

He did make them. His voice rang sharply. "Get the dogs away, Meade, and stop digging."

They were too eager at first to heed him. Eve hung on his arm, but he shook her off. "We don't like things like that down here. Our foxes are too rare."

It was a motley group which gathered later at the club for the hunt breakfast. There were fox-hunting farmers born on the land, of st.u.r.dy yeoman stock, and careless of form. There were the lords of newly acquired acres, who rode carefully on little saddles with short stirrups in the English style.

There were the descendants of the great old planters, daring, immensely picturesque. There was Eve's crowd, trained for the sport, and at their ease.

A big fire burned on the hearth. A copper-covered table held steaming dishes. Another table groaned under its load of cold meats and cheese. On an ancient mahogany sideboard were various bottles and bowls of punch.

Old songs were sung and old stories told. Brinsley beamed on everybody with his face like a round full moon. There were other round and red-faced gentlemen who, warmed by the fire and the punch, twinkled like unsteady old stars.

Eve was the pivotal center of all the hilarity. She sat on the table and served the punch. Her coat was off, and in her silk blouse and riding breeches she was like a lovely boy. The men crowded around her. Pip, always at her elbow, delivered an admiring opinion. "No one can hold a candle to you, Eve."

Richard was out of it. He sat quietly in a corner with David, old Jo at their feet, and watched the others. Eve had been angry with him for his interference at Crossroads. "I didn't know you were a molly-coddle, d.i.c.ky," she had said, "and I wanted the brush."