Jack turned aside and even in the dusk one could see she was embarrassed.

"Oh, I was disobeying orders," she said with a pretence of lightness. "I went over a rather high fence, which I had never taken before, without waiting until Bryan could get up to me. I made the jump without trouble, but the ground on the other side was so soft that my horse's forefeet went down[57] into it. He stumbled and fell. That is why I am such a spectacle," she concluded, touching her mud-stained habit with her whip.

[57]

Whatever he may have felt, Frank would naturally not discuss a difference between himself and his wife before another person. He therefore made no comment, but instead suggested:

"Suppose you get on my horse, Jack, and ride up to the house. Frieda and Olive are uneasy. Bryan and I will come along together."

According to the English custom, Lord and Lady Kent occupied separate bedrooms, which opened into each other.

A half hour later Jack was dressing for dinner when she heard Frank enter his room. But he did not come into her apartment or call out to her, although they were usually in the habit of discussing various questions through their open door, while they changed their clothes.

Jack, of course, recognized that her husband was angry with her. Also she knew that he had a measure of right on his side. She had promised him not to attempt dangerous jumping in her cross-country riding. Her accident a number of years before had made[58] him and all the members of her family more nervous about her than they would ordinarily have been, knowing that she had spent a large part of her life on horseback. Moreover, Frank had very rigid ideas about keeping one's word, not agreeing that one could swerve by a hair's breadth.

[58]

In a good deal of haste, since dinner was to be announced at any moment, Jack put on a white satin dinner dress. It was an old one, but chanced to be particularly becoming. The gown was simply made, with a square neck and a fold of tulle about the throat and a long, severely plain skirt. Only a woman with a figure as perfect as Jack's could have looked well in it. Her hair was arranged with equal simplicity, being coiled closely about her head and held in place with a carved ivory comb.

Half a dozen guests had been 

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