Bathurst's pink coat clung to him like a sack, all streaked and darkened
with rain. It had weathered a good many storms in its time, as its many
varieties of tint testified; but despite this fact, its wearer never
failed to look a sportsman and a gentleman. There was nothing of the
vagabond about Bathurst, but he had the vagabond's facility for making
himself at home wherever he went. He was never at a loss, never
embarrassed, never affronted. He took life easily, as he himself put it;
and on the whole he found it good.
Riding home at a jog-trot in that driving rain with the prospect of
having to feed and rub down Rupert at the end of it before he could
attend to his own needs was not a particularly entrancing prospect; but
he faced it philosophically. After today the little girl would be at
home, and she could do it for him again. She loved to wait on him hand
and foot, and it really was a pleasure to let her.
He whistled cheerily to himself as he wended his leisurely way through
the dripping lane that made the shortest cut to his home. It would be
nice to have the little girl home again. Lydia was all very well--a good
wife, as wives went--but there was no doubt about it that Dinah's
presence made a considerable difference to his comfort. The child was
quick to forestall his wants; he sometimes thought that she was even more
useful to him than a valet would have been.
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