From July to October she walked two or three hours a day, heavily dressed, and had a woman especially to attend to her hair and complexion, in addition to the _masseuse_ toiling to keep her cheeks and throat firm for the fight against wrinkles and loss of contour.
Arthur frowned at the interruption, then smoothed his features into a cordial smile; and at once that ugly mass of precipitated poison began to redistribute itself and hide itself from him.
"You've had a fall, haven't you ?" He flushed.

She, judging with the supersensitive vanity of all her self-conscious "set," thought the flush was at the implied criticism of his skill; but he was far too good a rider to care about his misadventure, and it was her unconscious double meaning that stung him.
She turned; they walked together.

After a brief debate as to the time for confessing his "fall," which, at best, could remain a secret no longer than Monday, he chose the present.

"Father's begun to cut up rough," said he, and his manner was excellent.

"He's taken away my allowance, and I'm to go to work at the mill." He was yielding to the insidious influence of her presence, was dropping rapidly back toward the attitude as well as the accent of "our set." At his frank disclosure Mrs.Whitney congratulated herself on her shrewdness so heartily that she betrayed it in her face; but Arthur did not see.