On the next day they met Jack De Baron in the park. They had not been long together before the Dean saw an old friend on the footpath and stopped to speak to him. Mary would have stayed too, had not her horse displayed an inclination to go on, and that she had felt herself unwilling to make an effort in the matter. As she rode on with Captain De Baron she remembered all that had been said by Guss Mildmay and Mrs. Houghton, and remembered also her own decision that nothing of that kind could matter to her. It was an understood thing that ladies and gentlemen when riding should fall into this kind of intercourse. Her father was with her, and it would be absurd that she should be afraid to be a minute or two out of his sight. "I ought to have been hunting," said Jack; "but there was frost last night, and I do hate going down and being told that the ground is as hard as brickbats at the kennels, while men are ploughing all over the country. And now it's a delicious spring day." "You didn't like getting up, Captain De Baron," she said. "Perhaps there's something in that. Don't you think getting up is a mistake? My idea of a perfect world is one where nobody would ever have to get up." "I shouldn't at all like always to lie in bed." "But there might be some sort of arrangement to do away with the nuisance. See what a good time the dogs have." "Now, Captain De Baron, would you like to be a dog?" This she said turning round and looking him full in the face. "Your dog I would." At that moment, just over his horse's withers, she saw the face of Guss Mildmay who was leaning on her father's arm. Guss bowed to her, and she was obliged to return the salute. Jack De Baron turned his face to the path and seeing the lady raised his hat. "Are you two friends?" he asked. "Not particularly." "I wish you were. But, of course, I have no right to wish in such a matter as that." Lady George felt that she wished that Guss Mildmay had not seen her riding in the park on that day with Jack De Baron. CHAPTER XVII. THE DISABILITIES.