He and Barclay, Lady Withers, and many other people were stopping the week-end at Mrs. Ascott-Smith’s, who had Chilliecote Abbey, and when he got home that afternoon he went at once to the great library, where the ceremony of tea was celebrated. The daylight was fading from the mullioned windows as it had faded on winter afternoons for three hundred years. Candles burned on the vacant card-tables, while the occupants of the room gathered in the glow of the great Elizabethan fireplace and conversed and ate. As he approached the circle, Lady Withers put down her tea cup. “Did you have another run after we pulled out?” she asked. “Yes,” said Mr. Carteret; “rather a good one.” Suddenly her eyes began to beam. There was a display of red lips and white teeth, and a sort of general facial radiation. It was an effort usually fatal to guardsmen, but it affected Mr. Carteret like the turning on of an electric heater, and he backed away as if he felt the room were warm enough. “I am so glad,” she said. “Tell me,” she went on in her soft, delightfully modulated voice, “aren’t you interested with Mr. Barclay in some farms?” “We own two ranches together,” said Mr. Carteret. “Yes, that was it,” said Lady Withers; “and you raise horses on them?” Mr. Carteret apprehended what was coming. “Yes; ranch horses,” he said dryly. “And such good ones, as Mr. Barclay was telling me,” said Lady Withers. “He made me quite enthusiastic with his account of it all, and he is so anxious to have dear Cecil manage them in England; but before Cecil decides one way or the other I want your advice.” Mr. Carteret looked at her and stroked his mustache. His opportunity to save Barclay had come. “My advice would be worth very little,” he said; “but I can give you all the facts, and of course Barclay--well, he can’t.” A shade of apprehension crossed Lady Withers’s face. “And why not?” she demanded. “I should rather not go into that,” said Mr. Carteret. “Of course the great objection to the scheme is that it would be unprofitable for Mr. Granvil, because no one would buy our horses.” “But wouldn’t they,” said Lady Withers, “if they were good ones?” “Major Hammerslea can answer that question better than I,” said Mr. Carteret. He looked toward that great man and smiled. The Major was the author of “Schooling and Riding British Hunters,” and Mr. Carteret knew his views. “No one,” said the Major, impressively, “would buy an American horse if he desired to make or possess a really good hunter.” “But why advertise that they were American?” observed Lady Withers, blandly. “How could you hide it?” said the Major. “Exactly,” said Mr. Carteret. “Furthermore,” observed the Major, his interest in the controversy growing, “the output of a single breeding institution would scarcely make it worth Cecil’s while to manage an agency for their distribution.” “I think you don’t understand,” said Lady Withers, “that Mr. Carteret has a large place.”