Stanistreet wondered too. He wondered at the things she allowed herself
to say; he wondered whether she was drawing any inference; and above all,
he wondered at the shrinking introspective look on her careless face.

In another minute Mrs. Nevill Tyson had started from her seat and was
waving her muff wildly in the air. "Look--there he goes! Oh, _did_ you
see him take that fence? What an insane thing to do with the ground
like that."

He looked in the direction indicated by the muff, and saw Tyson riding
far ahead of the hunt, a small scarlet blot on the gray-white landscape.

"By Jove! he rides as if he were charging the enemy's guns at the head of
a line of cavalry."

"Yes." She leaned back; the excitement faded from her face, and she
sighed. The sigh was so light that it scarcely troubled the frosty air,
but it made Stanistreet look at her again. How adorably pretty she was
in all her moods!

Perhaps she was conscious of the look, for she rattled on again more
incoherently than before. "I'm talking a great deal of nonsense; I always
do when I get the chance. You can't talk nonsense to mother; she wouldn't
understand it. She'd think it was sense. And, you see, I'm interested in
my husband. I suppose it's the proper thing to take an interest in your
husband. If you won't take an interest in your husband, what will you
take an interest in? It's natural--not to say primitive. Do you know, he
says I'm the most primitive person he ever came across. Should _you_ say
I was primitive? Don't answer that. I don't think he'd like me to talk
about him quite so much. He thinks I never know where to draw the line.