“My good chap—­”

“Yes, I know; leave all that out.  We’ll take that as read.  What comes next?”

Archie looked at him a moment.

“How d’you mean?  Do you mean, do I approve?”

“Well, I didn’t mean that,” admitted Dick.  “I meant, how’d I better set about it?”

Archie’s face froze ever so slightly. (It will be remembered that Jack Kirkby considered him pompous.)

“You must do it your own way,” he said.

“Sorry, old man,” said Dick.  “Didn’t mean to be rude.”

Archie straightened himself from the chair-back.

“It’s all rather surprising,” he said.  “It never entered my head.  I must think about it.  Good-night.  Put the lights out when you come.”

“Archie, old man, are you annoyed?”

“No, no; that’s all right,” said Archie.

And really and truly that was all that passed between these two that night on the subject of Jenny—­so reposeful were they.

(II)

There was a glorious breeze blowing over the hills as Jenny rode slowly up about noon next day.  The country is a curious mixture—­miles of moor, as desolate and simple and beautiful as moors can be, and by glimpses, now and then in the valleys between, of entirely civilized villages, with even a town or two here and there, prick-up spires and roofs; and, even more ominous, in this direction and that, lie patches of smoke about the great chimneys.

Jenny was meditative as she rode up alone.  It is very difficult to be otherwise when one has passed through one considerable crisis, and foresees a number of others that must be met, especially if one has not made up one’s mind as to the proper line of action.  It is all very well to be sensible, but a difficulty occasionally arises as to which of two or three courses is the more in accordance with that character.  To be impulsive certainly leads to trouble sometimes, but also, sometimes it saves it.

Jenny looked charming in repose.  She was in a delightful green habit; she wore a plumy kind of hat; she rode an almost perfect little mare belonging to Lord Talgarth, and her big blue, steady eyes roved slowly round her as she went, seeing nothing.  It was, in fact, the almost perfect little mare who first gave warning of the approach to the sportsmen, by starting violently all over at the sound of a shot, fired about half a mile away.  Jenny steadied her, pulled her up, and watched between the cocked and twitching ears.

Below her, converging slowly upwards, away from herself, moved a line of dots, each precisely like its neighbor in color (Lord Talgarth was very particular, indeed, about the uniform of his beaters), and by each moved a red spot, which Jenny understood to be a flag.  The point towards which they were directed culminated in a low, rounded hill, and beneath the crown of this, in a half circle, were visible a series of low defenses,