That lesson should quickly precede his offer; and, although he had almost hoped, in the interval between two of his beakers of gin-and-water on the preceding evening, that he might ride the race and win it altogether during this very morning visit he was about to make, in his cooler moments he had begun to reflect that that would hardly be practicable.

The mare must get a gallop before she would be in a condition to be brought out.

So Archie knocked at the door, intending merely to give the mare a gallop if he should find her in to-day.
He gave his name, and was shown at once up into Lady Ongar's drawing-room.

Lady Ongar was not there, but she soon came down, and entered the room with a smile on her face and with an outstretched hand.
Between the man-servant who took the captain's name, and the maid-servant who carried it up to her mistress, but who did not see the gentleman before she did so, there had arisen some mistake; and Lady Ongar, as she came down from her chamber above, expected that she was to meet another man.

Harry Clavering, she thought, had come to her at last.
"I'll be down at once," Lady Ongar had said, dismissing the girl, and then standing for a moment before her mirror as she smoothed her hair, obliterated, as far as it might be possible, the ugliness of her cap, and shook out the folds of her dress.