Rosamund nodded, crossing her crop.

“At first, though, I did care,” continued the girl.  “I was so ashamed that people should gossip whenever a man was trying to be nice to me—­”

“Pooh!  It’s always the men’s own faults.  Don’t you suppose the martyr’s silence is noisier than a shriek of pain from the house-tops?  I know—­a little about men,” added Rosamund modestly, “and they invariably say to themselves after a final rebuff:  ’Now, I’ll be patient and brave and I’ll bear with noble dignity this cataclysm which has knocked the world galley-west for me and loosened the moon in its socket and spoiled the symmetry of the sun.’  And they go about being so conspicuously brave that any debutante can tell what hurts them.”

Eileen was still laughing, but not quite at her ease—­the theme being too personal to suit her.  In fact, there usually seemed to be too much personality in Rosamund’s conversation—­a certain artificial indifference to convention, which she, Eileen, did not feel any desire to disregard.  For the elements of reticence and of delicacy were inherent in her; the training of a young girl had formalised them into rules.  But since her debut she had witnessed and heard so many violations of convention that now she philosophically accepted such, when they came from her elders, merely reserving her own convictions in matters of personal taste and conduct.

For a while, as they rode, Rosamund was characteristically amusing, sailing blandly over the shoals of scandal, though Eileen never suspected it—­wittily gay at her own expense, as well as at others, flitting airily from topic to topic on the wings of a self-assurance that becomes some women if they know when to stop.  But presently the mischievous perversity in her bubbled up again; she was tired of being good; she had often meant to try the effect of a gentle shock on Miss Erroll; and, besides, she wondered just how much truth there might be in the unpleasantly persistent rumour of the girl’s unannounced engagement to Selwyn.

“It would be amusing, wouldn’t it?” she asked with guileless frankness; “but, of course, it is not true—­this report of their reconciliation.”

“Whose reconciliation?” asked Miss Erroll innocently.

“Why, Alixe Ruthven and Captain Selwyn.  Everybody is discussing it, you know.”

“Reconciled?  I don’t understand,” said Eileen, astonished.  “They can’t be; how can—­”

“But it would be amusing, wouldn’t it? and she could very easily get rid of Jack Ruthven—­any woman could.  So if they really mean to remarry—­”

The girl stared, breathless, astounded, bolt upright in her saddle.

“Oh!” she protested, while the hot blood mantled throat and cheek, “it is wickedly untrue.  How could such a thing be true, Mrs. Fane!  It is—­is so senseless—­”

“That is what I say,” nodded Rosamund; “it’s so perfectly senseless that it’s amusing—­even if they have become such amazingly good friends again. I never believed there was anything seriously sentimental in the situation; and their renewed interest in each other is quite the most frankly sensible way out of any awkwardness,” she added cordially.