I looked up at him. His eyes were full of a quizzical smile. There is something in the way his head is set, a distinction, an air of command. It infinitely pleases me. I felt--I know not what!

"Now I will say good-night. I am tired, and it is getting late," I said.

"Good-night, Comtesse," and he walked to the door. "I shall be down at nine o'clock."

And so we parted.

VIII

On the morrow it had cleared up and flashes of blue sky were appearing. Augustus and Mr. McCormack had both had too much to drink the night before, at dinner, and were looking, and no doubt feeling, mixed and ill-tempered.

The morning was long after the shooters had gone. It seemed as if one o'clock, when we were to start for the lunch, would never come.

Miss Springle had some pa.s.sages-at-arms with Mrs. Dodd. They had all been down to breakfast but Lady Wakely and another woman, who were accustomed to the ways of the world.

I had never seen any shooting before. The whole thing was new to me.

Augustus had insisted upon selecting what he considered a suitable costume for me. We had been up to London several times together to try it on, and, on the whole, though a little _outre_ in its checks, it is not unbecoming.

"Do you shoot, yourself, Mrs. Gussie?" Mrs. Dodd asked, when we a.s.sembled in the hall, ready to start.

"No; do you?" I replied.

"Of course not! The idea! But, seeing your skirt so very short, I should have guessed you were a sportswoman and killed the birds yourself!" and she sniffed ominously.

"Do birds get killed with a skirt?" Miss Springle asked, pertly. She hates Mrs. Dodd. They were neighbors In Liverpool, originally. "I thought you had to shoot at them?"

Mrs. Dodd snorted.

"You will get awfully muddy, Mrs. Dodd, in your long cashmere," Miss Springle continued. "And Mr. Dodd told me, when I met him coming from the bath this morning, to be sure not to wear any colors--they frighten the birds. I am certain he will object to that yellow paradise-plume in your hat."

Mrs. Dodd looked ready to fight.

"Mr. Dodd had better talk to me about my hat!" she said, growing purple in the face. "I call all these modern sporting-costumes indecent, and when I was a girl I should have been whipped for coming out shooting in the things you have got on, Miss Springle!"

"Really! you don't say so!" said Miss Springle, innocently, "Why, I never heard they shot birds in Liverpool, Mrs. Dodd."

I interfered. The expression of my elder guest's face was becoming apoplectic.

"Let us get into the brake," I said.

Lady Wakely sat next me.

"Very unpleasant person, Mrs. Dodd," she whispered, wheezily, as we drove off, "She is here every year. My dear, you are good-natured to put up with her."

Lunch was laid out in the barn of one of the farm-houses. Augustus had given orders that it should be of the most sumptuous description, and the chef had done marvels.

The table looked like a wedding-breakfast when we got there, with flowers and printed menus.

The sportsmen were not long in making their appearance. It was a rather warm day, and Mr. McCormack and Mr. Dodd, who were not accustomed to much exercise, I suppose, without ceremony mopped their heads.

Antony, who was walking behind, with Sir Samuel Wakely, appeared such an astonishingly cool contrast to them. His coat did not look new, but as if it had seen service. Only everything fitted and hung right, and he walks with an ease and grace that would have pleased grandmamma.

Augustus had a thunderous expression on his face. So had Wilks, the head keeper. Later, I gathered there had been a great quant.i.ty of birds, but the commercial friends had not been very successful in their destruction. In fact, Mr. Dodd had only secured two brace, besides one of the beaters in the shoulder, and a dog.

Antony sat by me.

"Dangerous work, shooting," he said, smiling, as he looked at the menu. "What is your average list of killed in a pheasant battue?"

"What--what kind of killed?" I asked, laughing.

"Guests or beaters or dogs--anything but the birds."

"Cutlets ha la ravigotte or 'ommard ha lamerican, Sir Antony?" the voice of the first footman sounded in our ears.

"Oh--er--get me a little Irish stew or some cold beef," said Antony, plaintively, still with the menu in his hand.

"We've no--Irish stew--except what is prepared for the beaters, Sir Antony," said James, apologetically. He had come from a ducal house and knew the world. "Shall I get you some of that, Sir Antony?"

"No, don't mind." Then, turning to me, "What are you eating, Comtesse?" he asked. "I will have some of that."

"It is truffled partridge in aspic," I said, disagreeably. "You can pick out the truffles if you are afraid of them."

"Truffled partridge, then," he said to James, resignedly, and when it came he deliberately ate the truffles first.

"Hock, claret, Burgundy, or champagne, Sir Antony?" demanded the butler.

"Oh--er--I will have the whole four!"

His face had the most comical expression of chastened resignation as he glanced at me.

Griggson poured out b.u.mpers in the four gla.s.ses.

"I shall now shoot like your friend from Liverpool," said Antony, "and if I kill your husband and most of the guests I cannot be blamed for it," and he drank down the hock.

"Don't be so foolish," I said, laughing, in spite of having pretended to be annoyed with him.

"I would drink anything rather than incur your displeasure," he said, with great humility, as he took up the claret. "Must I eat everything on the menu, too?"

I appeared not to hear, and turned to Mr. Dodd, who was on my other side, his usually pale face still crimson with walking so fast and this feast of Lucullus he was partaking of.

"I had bad luck this morning, Mrs. Gussie," he said, in a humble voice. "I am sorry about that man and dog, and I am afraid the gentleman on your right must have got a pellet also--eh, sir?" and he addressed Antony.

"A mere trifle," said my neighbor "on the right," with his most suave air and a twinkle in his eye as he finished the claret. "Just a shot or two in the left arm--a mere nothing, when one considers the dangers the whole line were incurring."