"I do love yachting," she said, "to see the sea change from aquamarines
and diamonds to sapphires and emeralds, with thick unexpected streaks of
turquoise. To sail away into the unknown, away from your own life----"
She was looking dreamily in front of her to the blue beyond the mimosa.
"The sea is jolly," he said.
"To feel that you are leaving land behind you and your friends and your
relations and your duties and what are called your pleasures. To be
free," she murmured.
"There's nothing like horses," he said. "Their very smell does you good.
An hour's gallop before breakfast in summer, a twenty minutes' run with
the hounds in winter----"
A week later they were engaged to be married. I wondered whether he
would take to yachting or she to riding or both to golf.
I didn't see them for five years. And then, I met her at Melton. She had
taken a house for the winter. "So he won," I reflected to myself.
"Have you done much yachting lately?" I asked her.
"Yachting?" she said, "why it's my idea of hell. I'm the worst sailor in
the world. A sea as calm as a pond finishes me."
"How is your husband?" I murmured weakly. "Is he coming down here to
hunt?"
"Tommy?" she laughed. "Why he's never known a horse from a cow."