"I'm late," said Sir George, coming around to the fire. "Hello, Nibbetts!"
Then he nodded generally to the others. "I got shot in the back," he went on jovially, "and they had to undress me. And then I had to dress again, of course."
"Who shot you?" asked Lady Bellingdown, with the well-bred interest of a well-bred hostess. "Were you badly shot?"
When gentlemen go shooting, to be shot is so common that no one very much minds. Even Sir George's wife, loving him as she did, managed to preserve a stoical silence. To have appeared upset would have been very bad form.
"I don't know," answered the victim. "I don't know who shot me. I was ahead with Donty Down, and I heard Donty yell, and then—there I was peppered. He vows he saw the shot coming."
"How amusing!" cried the duke, delighted. "It is amusing. Donty's always funny."
"Was he shot, too?" asked Donty's wife.
"No, he—"
The door creaked beyond and the butler came tumbling forward to whisper: "Sir Caryll Carleigh."
Then he was really there before them—the hero of the biggest harvest of talk in recent years.