Midmore desired more than he desired anything else at that moment to ride and, above all, to jump on a ninety-guinea bay gelding with black points and a slovenly habit of hitting his fences.  He did not wish many people except Mr. Sidney, who very kindly lent his soft meadow behind the floodgates, to be privy to the matter, which he rightly foresaw would take him to the autumn.  So he told such friends as hinted at country week-end visits that he had practically let his newly inherited house.  The rent, he said, was an object to him, for he had lately lost large sums through ill-considered benevolences.  He would name no names, but they could guess.  And they guessed loyally all round the circle of his acquaintance as they spread the news that explained so much.

There remained only one couple of his once intimate associates to pacify.  They were deeply sympathetic and utterly loyal, of course, but as curious as any of the apes whose diet they had adopted.  Midmore met them in a suburban train, coming up to town, not twenty minutes after he had come off two hours’ advanced tuition (one guinea an hour) over hurdles in a hall.  He had, of course, changed his kit, but his too heavy bridle-hand shook a little among the newspapers.  On the inspiration of the moment, which is your natural liar’s best hold, he told them that he was condemned to a rest-cure.  He would lie in semi-darkness drinking milk, for weeks and weeks, cut off even from letters.  He was astonished and delighted at the ease with which the usual lie confounds the unusual intellect.  They swallowed it as swiftly as they recommended him to live on nuts and fruit; but he saw in the woman’s eyes the exact reason she would set forth for his retirement.  After all, she had as much right to express herself as he purposed to take for himself; and Midmore believed strongly in the fullest equality of the sexes.

That retirement made one small ripple in the strenuous world.  The lady who had written the twelve-page letter ten months before sent him another of eight pages, analysing all the motives that were leading her back to him—­should she come?—­now that he was ill and alone.  Much might yet be retrieved, she said, out of the waste of jarring lives and piteous misunderstandings.  It needed only a hand.

But Midmore needed two, next morning very early, for a devil’s diversion, among wet coppices, called ‘cubbing.’

‘You haven’t a bad seat,’ said Miss Sperrit through the morning-mists.  ‘But you’re worrying him.’

‘He pulls so,’ Midmore grunted.

‘Let him alone, then.  Look out for the branches,’ she shouted, as they whirled up a splashy ride.  Cubs were plentiful.  Most of the hounds attached themselves to a straight-necked youngster of education who scuttled out of the woods into the open fields below.

‘Hold on!’ some one shouted.  ’Turn ’em, Midmore.  That’s your brute Sidney’s land.  It’s all wire.’

‘Oh, Connie, stop!’ Mrs. Sperrit shrieked as her daughter charged at a boundary-hedge.