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Hawk Wethered, his young wife and his great dog behind him, had changed his red coat for an old tweed jacket, his boots and spurs for a pair of embroidered mocassins. He was supporting himself on a stick. In his free hand he carried a half-empty glass.

“Took a bit of a toss”, he growled. “Bryce-Atkinson and that memsahib of his wanted to send me home in a car. Lot of nonsense.”

He put his glass on the tea table and subsided into the chair which had been occupied by Camilla. Rockingham saw mud on his white breeches—more of it on his crumpled stock.

“Only run we had all day.” He emptied the glass; turned to his wife. “I could do with a drop more of this, my dear.”

Again Camilla rang; and the butler entered.

“More brandy”, snarled the Hawk. “And go easy with the soda, Merivale.”

“Very good, Sir Guy.”

The butler went out.

“Oughtn’t you to see a doctor?” asked Camilla.

“Bosh, it’s only a bruise. You been here long, Rusty?”

Camilla answered, “He came about three o’clock”.

The dog was at the window again by then.

“It doesn’t seem to have been much of a run after all”, she went on. “Here are the others. I’ll go and tell Merivale to bring in some more tea.”

The Hawk called after her, “Tell him to hurry up with my brandy”.

“That memsahib of Bryce-Atkinson’s”, he went on, “is a positive menace in the hunting field. And he always did ride like a tailor. You still hunt, Rusty?”

“Oh, I get a day every now and again, sir.”

“I’d get as much of it as I could for the rest of this season if I were you. The chances are you’ll find yourself without a horse at all next.”

Camilla returned, bringing the drink herself. Her husband tossed it down at a gulp.

“That’s better”, he said.

More hoofs kicked the gravel outside. Bryce-Atkinson, his brigade major, appeared—florid and solicitous—in the doorway.

“Are you all right, sir?” asked Herbert Bryce-Atkinson.

“All right. Of course I’m all right. What happened? Why are you two back so soon?”

“We lost our fox just after you went home, sir. And I thought the horses had had enough.”

Bryce-Atkinson continued, “Hello, Rockingham”; then he turned, all affability, on Camilla.

“You really ought to hunt, Lady Wethered.”

“So Guy’s always telling me.”

The Hawk appeared to have recovered his temper.

“She doesn’t approve of blood sports”, he grinned. “I’m not sure that I’m quite as keen on them as I was this morning. Getting a bit long in the tooth for taking purlers.”

His hand went to that one silver streak in his black hair. His dark eyes—as they sought his wife’s—were just a trifle too affectionate.

“Shook me up a bit”, he apologised. “’Fraid I didn’t behave too well.”

“Vilely.” Camilla smiled. “But if the excuse for your bad language and the reference to your advancing years are meant to imply that you ought to be allowed another brandy and soda, the answer is ‘No’.”

“The wifely supervisions”, laughed Hawk Wethered then. “Marital discipline. You observe that I only told you the exact truth, Rusty.”

Camilla’s eyes sought Rockingham’s. But before he could interpret the look in them, Diana Bryce-Atkinson—tall in her habit, thin-lipped, her tinted hair still showing the imprint of the bowler—came through the door.

Tea followed at once.

“Angel cake!” exclaimed Bryce-Atkinson’s Diana—and fell upon it without another word.