‘I hope my manners will pass muster,’ retorted Fan loftily. ‘As to doing what others do, perhaps you will not object to my forming an exception, if the company begin to pelt each other with gooseberries, or to play at kiss in the ring.’ There might have been another recruit, or couple of recruits, added to the forces, if Oliver had not rejected the suggestion peremptorily. Harry Stanhope was beginning to find that yeoman work was not so entirely a manly pastime—like hunting and shooting—that it did not require all the play he could obtain to diversify it and prevent it from sinking into dull drudgery. He was not particular in his associates, but showed himself ready to knock up acquaintances in any class, and have a jolly lark with them at any time. ‘Won’t you take me with you to the turn-out?’ Harry put it insinuatingly to Fan. ‘You may fancy I should be in the way, but if they will let me drive one of the shandrydans, I’ll pledge myself you sha’n’t be spilt. Constable knows I’m good to handle the ribbons without an accident. It’s a thundering shame of Constable not to speak to my merits and Horry’s in this and in other respects, to leave us out in the cold, and go and enjoy himself like a selfish beast. I’m convinced it ain’t your blame, Miss Constable, that we have not got a bit of paste-board, or whatever is necessary.’ It was not Fan’s blame, for when Oliver said ‘No, a hundred times, no,’ doggedly, and with nothing save a stern satisfaction in the consideration that he was robbing Jack Dadd and ’Mily Polley of the delight of such an acquisition, Fan remonstrated with him privately. ‘Why can’t Mr. Stanhope go if we go, Oliver?’ she asked. ‘Good heavens, Fan! can’t you see the difference?’ demanded Oliver, out of all patience with the suggestion. ‘What business has Harry Stanhope with the Friarton tradespeople? Do you think he would go among them as his equals? He would go as he would intrude on a brewers’ bean-feast, or a bargemen’s saturnalia, or a meeting of thieves, or a pilgrimage to Mecca, without doubt or compunction, to see what he could see, and to take his fun out of the proceedings, while some of the idiots engaged in them might imagine he was there in good faith, as one of themselves. Am I to be an accomplice in such treachery?’ Oliver’s broad shoulders went up to his ears, as he imagined Stanhope letting Jack Dadd suppose he was pumping him, or drawing ’Mily Polley out, and astounding her ignorant audacity. ‘It is a relief to hear that there are idiots who cannot be mistaken for gentlemen and ladies,’ was Fan’s parting shot. After all, she was not sorry that Harry Stanhope would not be present when she resumed her place in her father’s circle.