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The British Barbarians by Grant Allen
page 47 of 132 (35%)
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The Alien went out a great deal with the Monteiths. Robert himself
did not like the fellow, he said: one never quite knew what the
deuce he was driving at; but Frida found him always more and more
charming,--so full of information!--while Philip admitted he was
excellent form, and such a capital tennis player! So whenever
Philip had a day off in the country, they three went out in the
fields together, and Frida at least thoroughly enjoyed and
appreciated the freedom and freshness of the newcomer's
conversation.

On one such day they went out, as it chanced, into the meadows that
stretch up the hill behind Brackenhurst. Frida remembered it well
afterwards. It was the day when an annual saturnalia of vulgar vice
usurps and pollutes the open downs at Epsom. Bertram did not care
to see it, he said--the rabble of a great town turned loose to
desecrate the open face of nature--even regarded as a matter of
popular custom; he had looked on at much the same orgies before in
New Guinea and on the Zambesi, and they only depressed him: so he
stopped at Brackenhurst, and went for a walk instead in the fresh
summer meadows. Robert Monteith, for his part, had gone to the
Derby--so they call that orgy--and Philip had meant to accompany
him in the dogcart, but remained behind at the last moment to take
care of Frida; for Frida, being a lady at heart, always shrank from
the pollution of vulgar assemblies. As they walked together across
the lush green fields, thick with campion and yellow-rattle, they
came to a dense copse with a rustic gate, above which a threatening
notice-board frowned them straight in the face, bearing the usual
selfish and anti-social inscription, "Trespassers will be
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