"Very crude, very faulty, very shy, but the real thing. But he'll never
publish anything again. It must have been torture to him to reveal as
much as he did in that book. He must find others to express him, and such
as him, to the world."

"Lady Holmes?"

"/Par exemple/. Deuced odd that while the dumb understand the whole show
the person who's describing it quite accurately to them often knows
nothing about it. Paradox, irony, blasted eternal cussedness of life! Did
you ever know Lady Ulford?"

"No."

"She was a horse-dealer's daughter."

Rupert!"

"On my honour! One of those women who are all shirt and collar and
nattiness, with a gold fox for a tie-pin and a hunting-crop under the
arm. She was killed schooling a horse in Mexico after making Ulford shy
and uncomfortable for fifteen years. Lady Cardington and a Texas cowboy
would have been as well suited to one another. Ulford's been like a
wistful ghost, they tell me, ever since her death. I should like to see
him and his son together."

A hard and almost vicious gleam shone for as instant in his eyes.

"You're as cruel as a Spaniard at a bull-fight."