ss was the
price she paid for her understanding.

She was absorbed in these reflections as she turned (in order to be home
by five o'clock), and walked towards the town. She was awakened from
them by the trampling of hoofs and the cheerful tootling of a horn. A
four-in-hand approached and passed her; not so furiously but that she had
time to recognise Lady Cayley on the box-seat, Mr. Gorst beside her,
driving, and Mr. Ransome and Mr. Hannay behind amongst a perfect
horticultural show in millinery.

Anne had no acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Scale and
Beesly Four-in-hand Club, and her intuition stopped short of recognising
Miss Gwen Richards, of the Vaudeville, and the others. All the same her
private arraignment of these ladies refused them whatever benefit they
were entitled to from any doubt. Not that Anne wasted thought on them.
In spite of her condemnation, they barely counted; they were mere
attendants, accessories in the vision of sin presented by Lady Cayley.

Nothing could have been more conspicuous than her appearance, more
unabashed than the proclamation of her gay approach. Mounted high,
heralded by the tootling horn, her hair blown, her cheeks bright with
speed, her head and throat wrapped in a rosy veil that flung two broad
streamers to the wind (as it were the banners of the red dawn flying and
fluttering over her), she passed, the supreme figure in the pageant of
triumphal vice.

Her face was turned to Gorst's face, his to hers. He looked more than
ever brilliant, charming and charmed, laughing aloud with his companion.
Hannay and Ransome raised their hats to Mrs. Majendie as they passed.
Gorst was too much absorbed in Lady Cayley.

Anne shivered, chilled and sick with the resurgence of her old disgust.
These were her husband's chosen associates and comrades; they stood by
one another; they were all bound up together in one degrading intimacy.
His dear friend Mr. Gorst was the dear friend of Lady Cayley. He knew
what she was, and thought nothing of it. Mr. Ransome, her brother-in-law,
knew, and thought nothing of it. As for Mr. Hannay, Walter's other dear
friend, you only had to look at the women he was with to see how much Mr.
Hannay thought. There could have been nothing very profound in his
supposed repudiation of Lady Cayley. If it was true that he had once paid
her money to go, he was doing his best to welcome her, now she had come
back. But it was Gorst, with his vivid delight