From time to time she found herself watching them furtively, comparing them unconsciously with her Quicksands friends.  Some of them she had remarked before, at contests of a minor importance, and they seemed to her to possess a certain distinction that was indefinable.  They had come to-day from many mysterious (and therefore delightful) places which Honora knew only by name, and some had driven the twenty-five odd miles from the bunting community of Banbury in coaches and even those new and marvellous importations—­French automobiles.  When the game had ended, and Lily Dallam was cajoling the club steward to set her tea-table at once, a group of these visitors halted on the lawn, talking and laughing gayly.  Two of the younger men Honora recognized with a start, but for a moment she could not place them—­until suddenly she remembered that she had seen them on her wedding trip at Hot Springs.  The one who lisped was Mr. Cuthbert, familiarly known as “Toots”:  the other, taller and slimmer and paler, was Jimmy Wing.  A third, the regularity of whose features made one wonder at the perfection which nature could attain when she chose, who had a certain Gallic appearance (and who, if the truth be told, might have reminded an impartial eye of a slightly animated wax clothing model), turned, stared, hesitated, and bowed to Lily Dallam.

“That’s Reggie Farwel, who did my house in town,” she whispered to Honora.  “He’s never been near me since it was finished.  He’s utterly ruined.”

Honora was silent.  She tried not to look at the group, in which there were two women of very attractive appearance, and another man.

“Those people are so superior,” Mrs. Dallam continued.

“I’m not surprised at Elsie Shorter.  Ever since she married Jerry she’s stuck to the Graingers closer than a sister.  That’s Cecil Grainger, my dear, the man who looks as though he were going to fall asleep any moment.  But to think of Abby Kame acting that way!  Isn’t it ridiculous, Clara?” she cried, appealing to Mrs. Trowbridge.  “They say that Cecil Grainger never leaves her side.  I knew her when she first married John Kame, the dearest, simplest man that ever was.  He was twenty years older than Abby, and made his money in leather.  She took the first steamer after his funeral and an apartment in a Roman palace for the winter.  As soon as she decently could she made for England.  The English will put up with anybody who has a few million dollars, and I don’t deny that Abby’s good-looking, and clever in her way.  But it’s absurd for her to come over here and act as though we didn’t exist.  She needn’t be afraid that I’ll speak to her.  They say she became intimate with Bessie Grainger through charities.  One of your friend Mrs. Holt’s charities, by the way, Honora.  Where are you going?”

For Honora had risen.

“I think I’ll go home, Lily,” she said; “I’m rather tired.”

“Home!” exclaimed Mrs. Dallam.  “What can you be thinking of, my dear?  Nobody ever goes home after the Banbury match.  The fun has just begun, and we’re all to stay here for dinner and dance afterwards.  And Trixy Brent promised me faithfully he’d’ come here for tea, as soon as he dressed.”