A bald desultory conversation was kept up and solely supported between Miss Saville and her nephew. Even Mary, from her opulent resources, could find but little to say, for Alice’s demeanour paralysed all efforts at sociability. Alice, leaning back in her chair with an air of serene divine beatitude, enacted the part of a blanket of the heaviest and wettest description. A very dreary evening at last came to an end, and when the ladies had departed Reginald strolled out into the pleasure-grounds to have a smoke and a think. As he paced moodily up and down, his reflections were anything but agreeable--very much the reverse. “What an infernal idiot I was to have come here! Fairfax, thy name is _fool_,” he added with bitter emphasis. “Far from being inclined for _peace_, Alice does all she can to _pose_ as the injured wife. There is nothing like taking high ground,” he muttered to himself, contemptuously kicking a fir-cone out of his way. “When the Mayhews come I’ll go, and meanwhile I’ll meet Alice on her own terms. I shall take her at her word once for all. No more halting between two opinions; no womanish caprice; we shall be strangers. I am actually talking to myself,” he exclaimed with a shrug of his shoulders; “an infallible sign that my reason is beginning to totter. Well, if the worst comes to the worst, I shan’t be the first Fairfax that has been an out-and-out _fool_.” CHAPTER VIII. ALICE’S OVERTURES ARE DECLINED. Being an early riser, Sir Reginald took a walk with his son and improved their acquaintance before breakfast the following morning. They found their way to the stables by mutual consent. Sir Reginald was astounded at their empty condition. “Where are the carriage-horses?--where are the brown cobs?” he asked authoritatively. “Please, sir, Lady Fairfax sent them back to Looton more than two years ago, as she never used them. She never drives,” said the groom gloomily. “Then what are these two hunters doing here?” “Her ladyship rides ’em reg’lar!” “Rides them! Do you mean to say that she rides that chestnut, ‘Cardigan’--the most ungovernable brute I ever owned? There must have been some great mistake in their coming here at all. These are not the horses I ordered to be sent down.” “I allus thought so, Sir Reginald; but her ladyship would not hear of any change, and I must say she do manage that mad cracked beast uncommon. But he is no ways fit for a lady, nor indeed for a gentleman.” “Well, see that you never saddle him for her again. Those are my orders,” he said, turning away. “She must have thought that I wanted to break her neck. Ignorance has certainly been bliss in my case. Many a wretched hour I would have spent had I known that Alice had adopted Cardigan as her park hack,” he muttered to himself as he walked towards the house in answer to the gong which summoned him to breakfast.