felt as if all the moisture in my body had been blown away over the
downs of Kent by the wind up which we had galloped. Still I was not
talking enough; my host was looking at me. I made another effort,
after all I had something to talk about, a twenty-mile point is not
often seen in a lifetime, especially south of the Thames. I began to
describe the run to Rosalind Smith. I could see then that my host was
pleased, the sad look in his face gave a kind of a flicker, like mist
upon the mountains on a miserable day when a faint puff comes from the
sea and the mist would lift if it could. And the butler refilled my
glass very attentively. I asked her first if she hunted, and paused
and began my story. I told her where we had found the fox and how fast
and straight he had gone, and how I had got through the village by
keeping to the road, while the little gardens and wire, and then the
river, had stopped the rest of the field. I told her the kind of
country that we crossed and how splendid it looked in the Spring, and
how mysterious the valleys were as soon as the twilight came, and what
a glorious horse I had and how wonderfully he went. I was so fearfully
thirsty after the great hunt that I had to stop for a moment now and
then, but I went on with my description of that famous run, for I had
warmed to the subject, and after all there was nobody to tell of it
but me except my old whipper-in, and "the old fellow's probably drunk
by now," I thought. I described to her minutely the exact spot in the
run at which it had come to me clearly that this was going to be the
greatest hunt in the whole history of Kent. Sometimes I forgot
incidents that had happened as one well may in a run of twenty miles,
and then I had to fill in the gaps by inventing. I was pleased to be
able to make the party go off well by means of my conversation, and
besides that the lady to whom I was speaking was extremely pretty: I
do not mean in a flesh and blood kind of way but there were little
shadowy lines about the chair beside me that hinted at an unusually