Lady Peggy laid down her cards.

"For goodness' sake, no more digressions," she implored. "Remember, please, that I play this game for the peace of mind of my tradespeople!

I redouble!"

The hand was played almost in silence. Lady Peggy lost the odd trick and began to add up the score with a gentle sigh.

"After all," her partner remarked, returning to the subject which they had been discussing, "I don't think that we could get on very well in this country without sport, of some sort."

"Of course not," Deyes answered. "We are all sportsmen, every one of us.

We were born so. Only, while some of us are content to wreak our instinct for destruction upon birds and animals, others choose the n.o.bler game--our fellow-creatures! To hunt or trap a human being is finer sport than to shoot a rocketing pheasant, or to come in from hunting with mud all over our clothes, smelling of ploughed fields, steaming in front of the fire, telling lies about our exploits--all undertaken in pursuit of a miserable little animal, which as often as not outwits us, and which, in an ordinary way, we wouldn't touch with gloves on! What do you say, Lady Peggy?"

"You're getting beyond me," she declared. "It sounds a little savage."

Deyes dealt the cards slowly, talking all the while.

"Sport is savage," he declared. "No one can deny it. Whether the quarry be human or animal, the end is death. But of all its varieties, give me the hunting of man by man, the brain of the hunter coping with the wiles of the hunted, both human, both of the same order. The game's even then, for at any moment they may change places--the hunter and his quarry.

It's finer work than slaughtering birds at the coverside. It gives your s.e.x a chance, Lady Peggy."

"It sounds exciting," she admitted.

"It is," he answered.

His hostess looked up at him languidly.

"You speak like one who knows!"

"Why not?" he murmured. "I have been both quarry and hunter. Most of us have more or less! I declare Hearts!"

Again there was an interval of silence, broken only by the stock phrases of the game, and the soft patter of the cards upon the table. Once more the hand was played out and the cards gathered up. Captain Austin delivered his quota to the general discussion.

"After all," he said, "if it wasn't for sport, our country houses would be useless."

"Not at all!" Deyes declared. "Country houses should exist for----"

"For what, Mr. Deyes? Do tell us," Lady Peggy implored.

"For bridge!" he declared. "For giving weary married people the opportunity for divorce, and as an asylum from one's creditors."

Wilhelmina shook her head as she gathered up her cards.

"You are not at your best to-day, Gilbert," she said. "The allusion to creditors is prehistoric! No one has them nowadays. Society is such a hop-scotch affair that our coffers are never empty."

"What a Utopian sentiment!" Lady Peggy murmured.

"We can't agree, can we?" Deyes whispered in her ear.

"You! Why they say that you are worth a million," she protested.

"If I am I remain poor, for I cannot spend it," he declared.

"Why not?" his hostess asked him from across the table.

"Because," he answered, "I am cursed with a single vice, trailing its way through a labyrinth of virtues. I am a miser!"

Lady Peggy laughed incredulously.

"Rubbish!" she exclaimed.

"Dear lady, it is nothing of the sort," he answered, shaking his head sadly. "I have felt it growing upon me for years. Besides, it is hereditary. My mother opened a post-office savings bank account for me.

At an early age I engineered a corner in marbles and sold out at a huge profit. I am like the starving dyspeptic at the rich man's feast."

Captain Austin intervened.

"I declare Diamonds," he announced, and the hand proceeded.

Wilhelmina leaned back in her chair as the last trick fell. Her eyes were turned towards the window. She could just see the avenue of elms down which her agent had ridden a short while since. Deyes, through half closed eyes, watched her with some curiosity.

"If one dared offer a trifling coin of the realm----" he murmured.

"I was thinking of your theory," she interrupted. "According to you, I suppose the whole world is made up of hunters and their quarry. Can you tell, I wonder, by looking at people, to which order they belong?"

"It is easy," he answered. "Yet you must remember we are continually changing places. The man who cracks the whip to-day is the hunted beast to-morrow. The woman who mocks at her lover this afternoon is often the slave-bearer when dusk falls. Swift changes like this are like rain upon the earth. They keep us, at any rate, out of the asylums."

Wilhelmina was still looking out of the window. Up the great avenue, in and out amongst the tree trunks, but moving always with swift buoyant footsteps towards the house, came a slim, dark figure, soberly dressed in ill-fitting clothes. He walked with the swing of early manhood, his head was thrown back, and he carried his hat in his hand. She leaned forward to watch him more closely--he seemed to have a.s.sociated himself in some mysterious manner with the mocking words of Gilbert Deyes. Half maliciously, she drew his attention to the swiftly approaching figure.

"Come, my friend of theories," she said mockingly. "There is a stranger there, the young man who walks so swiftly. To which of your two orders does he belong?"

Deyes looked out of the window--a brief, careless glance.

"To neither," he answered. "His time has not come yet. But he has the makings of both."

CHAPTER III

FIRST BLOOD

A footman entered the room a few minutes later, and obedient, without a doubt, to some previously given command, waited behind his mistress'

chair until a hand had been played. When it was over, she spoke to him without turning her head.

"What is it, Perkins?" she asked.

He bent forward respectfully.

"There is a young gentleman here, madam, who wishes to see you most particularly. He has no card, but he said that his name would not be known to you."

"Tell him that I am engaged," Wilhelmina said. "He must give you his name, and tell you what business he has come upon."