But how
should she rid herself of him? She noticed that he was looking at her, and
to lead his thoughts away from herself she asked him where he had gone
with his wife when they left Woodview. Breaking off suddenly, he said--
"Peggy knew all the time I was gone on you."
"It don't matter about that. Tell me where you went--they said you went
foreign."
"We first went to Boulogne, that's in France; but nearly everyone speaks
English there, and there was a nice billiard room handy, where all the big
betting men came in of an evening. We went to the races. I backed three
winners on the first day--the second I didn't do so well. Then we went on
to Paris. The race-meetings is very 'andy--I will say that for
Paris--half-an-hour's drive and there you are."
"Did your wife like Paris?"
"Yes, she liked it pretty well--it is all the place for fashion, and the
shops is grand; but she got tired of it too, and we went to Italy."
"Where's that?"
"That's down south. A beast of a place--nothing but sour wine, and all the
cookery done in oil, and nothing to do but seeing picture-galleries. I got
that sick of it I could stand it no longer, and I said, 'I've 'ad enough
of this. I want to go home, where I can get a glass of Burton and a cut
from the joint, and where there's a horse worth looking at.
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