' Do you loathe him?' she asked.
' Good heavens, no! But—but there are people like husks. Just husks.'
She considered this.
' Husky Ping-pong,' she said, half to herself. ' Poor Husky Ping-Pong. Do you grow them in England?'
' Yes, heaps. They grow in London. They are always at every party, and they know everybody, and make themselves immensely agreeable. It is all they do. And you see them in the back seats of motor-cars.'
She looked at him with some mischief in her eyes.
' And what do you do?' she asked.
' No more than they. Anyone is at liberty to call one a ping-pong. Only I'm not.'
' I know. I was wondering what the difference was according to your description.'
' There is none, I suppose. But don't confuse me with ping-pongs.'
She laughed.
' Lord Keynes, you are just adorable,' she said. ' I'll race you to the end of the avenue.'
' Adoring me all the time?'
' Unless you win,' she said.
' Then I will lose on purpose.'
' That will be mean. I never adore meanness. Are you ready?'
And her beautiful horse gathered his legs up under him and whirled her down the grassy ride. Bertie got not so good a start, and rode the gauntlet of the flying turf scattered by his heels, till, a bend of the path favouring him, he drew nearly abreast, pursuing her through sunshine and the flecked shadows on the grass. He had seen her day after day in the Revels, night after night at ball or concert, yet never had her beauty seemed to him so compelling as it did now, as, swaying the rein
