Man and beast, a great raw-boned, rat-tailed gray with a huge fiddle head and enormous withers, which she knew belonged to Ross Titterton, the horse-breaker at Key Hatch, hove fighting alongside. As though by mutual consent, they eased to a bumpy walk. "Yes. This is quite right," said Aliette. Examining the man, she saw a serious, clean-shaven face, eyes of pale clear blue, a broad forehead, a lean jowl, full lips, the nose prominent and almost pure Greek in shape, the chin determined, and the hair a curious goldy-gray as though bleached by the tropics. "Thanks so much." She judged him just over six feet and just under forty. He looked a horseman in his high black boots, dark cord breeches, pepper-and-salt cutaway coat, and buckskin gloves. "I hope I didn't startle your horse. This brute of Ross's pulls like a steam-engine," he apologized with an almost imperceptible drawl. "I know." Aliette smiled. "Mr. Titterton tried to sell him to us last year." "Oh, I can't afford to keep horses," confessed the man. "This is only a loan. Ross was sergeant-major of our yeomanry crowd in Palestine. He offered me a ride once--and I've taken him at his word. You don't mind my jogging along with you like this, do you?" "Of course not. We turn off to the right here." They rode down, chatting with the easy camaraderie of fox-hunting folk, into sight of a village. It lay just below them, on a spur of the common--pointed church-spire, gray vicarage crouching at foot, among a blob of slate-roofed smoke-plumed cottages. Beyond it, the ground unrolled to a brown and green checker-board of square hedged fields, lozenged here and there with pale woodlands. "That's High Moor Church," announced Aliette, pointing her whip at the spire. "High Moor!" The man cogitated. "Isn't a fellow named Brunton the rector?" "Yes. You speak as if you knew him." "Only slightly. I see a good deal of his brother. The K.C., you know. I'm at the bar." "Oh!" Aliette hesitated a moment. "I'm his wife." "Whose! The parson's?" "No. The K.C.'s." Both laughed, feeling the conventional ice broken. "My name's Cavendish, Mrs. Brunton. Ronald Cavendish. You probably know my mother--most people do." "Julia Cavendish, the novelist. Of course I know of her; but we've never met. What a wonderful woman she must be!" "She is." Ronnie's serious face lit. Usually shy with women, he felt quaintly at ease with this one. She seemed so sure of herself. And how she rode! That horse must take some steering. He wanted, suddenly, to see her across country; to send his gray pelting after her chestnut. Of her peculiar beauty, except as a horsewoman, he was not yet conscious. But Aliette, even in those first moments of their meeting, knew herself stirred, ever so subtly, to interest. Julia Cavendish's son! Didn't she remember something, something rather decent about Julia Cavendish's son?