Mr. Leffington Feels Inspired 



particular hunting morning, since the direction 

 his inspiration the day before had taken would be 

 greatly affected by coming events. He noticed 

 with pleasure that Gwen started violently when 

 she saw John at the club which he took to mean 

 they had not seen each other the morning before 

 on the train, and that a whispered conversation 

 followed quickly between she and Mrs. Leffington, 

 in which the latter often looked at him, Mr. 

 Leffington, in a manner which he easily catalogued 

 through long experience, as "stormy." 



At last, screwing up his courage he joined John 

 Rexford in conversation, right under the guns as 

 it were, and finally with a nonchalance of which 

 Mrs. Leffington would have believed him incapa- 

 ble, gave three long blasts on his horn as a warning 

 to all late comers, stuck his heel into the Nut- 

 Cracker's side and moved off alone in his glory at 

 the head of an eager pack of twenty couples, a 

 good sized field following on behind. He had 

 given the Rocket to Gwen to ride, which was the 

 safest and biggest jumping horse in the stables, 

 and he had seen that Rexford found a good mount 

 at the club, so that it was not that which weighed 

 upon his mind and caused him to remain unusually 

 silent as they trotted down the road past Four 

 Corners, and then turned up into some thick 

 woods at the crest of the hill overlooking the 

 109 



