The four-in-hand which was drawn up in front of the great terrace of Ripon House the next morning reflected much credit upon Mr. Jawkins's _savoir faire_. The new harness glistened in the sunlight of the bright November morning; the grooms, in the nattiest of coats and the whitest and tightest of breeches, were standing at the horses' heads; and the horses themselves, beautifully matched, clean-limbed and glossy, were fresh from a toilet as carefully made as that of a professional beauty, or even Mrs. Oswald Carey's own. And that lady stood on the threshold of the Doric portal, her clinging driving-dress seeming loath to hide the grand curves of her figure, and her violet eyes drinking in the day. As she stood there, she seemed anything but the flower of a moribund civilization, the last blossom of an ancient _regime_; but there is a certain force which flourishes in anarchy, a life which feeds upon the decay of other lives, and grows but the more beautiful for it. Geoffrey looked upon her with a half-repelled, unwilling admiration, little knowing how near he had been to her the night before. Then Maggie Windsor came out, and he tried to look at her instead. "Remarkably fine horses, those, Mr. Windsor," remarked the Duke, with a gravely approving nod of his polished head. "Remarkably fine horses," he repeated, as if one could not have too much of a good thing from a duke; and this time he threw in a wave of his patrician hand, gratis. Jawkins looked at him with admiration, and again felt that he was a prime investment. The strawberry-colored dome of his bald head was alone worth the money, not to mention the strawberry leaves. "And does not your Grace admire the break?" asked Mr. Jawkins, with a preliminary bow and smirk. "It is a new pattern; and the panels picked out in cream color are thought to give a monstrous fine tone to the body. And as for the horses--they're from ex-President Rourke's state stables." The Duke looked as if he deprecated the introduction of any such recent personage into the company, even by the mention of his name; and at that moment the Duchess arrived with Sir John Dacre. Sir John did not look much like the member of a coaching party; a close observer might have noted a slight mutual glance of intelligence passing between his eyes and Geoffrey's. Mrs. Oswald Carey was that close observer. "A four-in-hand is all very well for those that like it," observed Mr. Windsor to the Duke, "but give me a box buggy and a span of long-tailed horses. Are you off to-day, Jawkins?"