It'll be a long engagement. Of course, there's nothing
in farming, and Horace insists on their having a thousand a year. It
depends so much on Mr. Tharp. I think they could do perfectly well on
seven hundred to start with, don't you, Charles?"
General Pendyce's answer was not more conspicuously to the point than
usual, for he was a man who loved to pursue his own trains of thought.
"What about George?", he said. "I met him in the hall as I was coming
in, but he ran off in the very deuce of a hurry. They told me at Epsom
that he was hard hit."
His eyes, distracted by a fly for which he had taken a dislike, failed
to observe his sister-in-law's face.
"Hard hit?" she repeated.
"Lost a lot of money. That won't do, you know, Margery--that won't do. A
little mild gambling's one thing."
Mrs. Pendyce said nothing; her face was rigid: It was the face of a
woman on the point of saying: "Do not compel me to hint that you are
boring me!"
The General went on:
"A lot of new men have taken to racing that no one knows anything about.
That fellow who bought George's horse, for instance; you'd never have
seen his nose in Tattersalls when I was a young man. I find when I go
racing I don't know half the colours. It spoils the pleasure. It's no
longer the close borough that it was.
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