"I always do let you have it," she replied uncompromisingly. "You think such a deal of yourselves that it does you all the good in the world. But I don't wait till I go away."
"I was rather sorry that Joan got let into that gang of people at all," said John Spence. "They're no good to anybody. It hasn't altered her at all, has it? She and Nancy were the jolliest pair. Lord, how they made me laugh when they were kids, and I first came down here!"
He laughed now at the remembrance, a jolly, robust laugh which wrinkled his firm, weathered skin, and showed his white teeth. "I shouldn't like to see either of them spoiled by going about to houses like Brummels," he said, with a return to seriousness. "I don't believe Nancy would have cared about it."
"She would have gone just the same as Joan," said Miss Dexter, "if she had happened to be in the way of it, and she would have behaved just the same; that is, just as she ought to have behaved. You seem to think that Joan is smirched because she has been let in, through no fault of hers, for this horrid thing. You're as bad as Mrs. Amberley."
John Spence received this charge with an "Oh, I say!" But he added, "All the same, I wish it hadn't happened."
The guns met the next morning at the corner by the Dower House. The Squire brought with him Sir Herbert Birkett, the judge, and Sir George Senhouse, who had married the judge's daughter. Neither of them would be expected to do much execution amongst the young birds, but the Squire was strong on family ties, and liked to have his relatives to shoot with him, more especially when he was going to shoot partridges.
The twins and Lady Senhouse were of the party, and Virginia and Miss Dexter. It was a family occasion, and John Spence, knowing that it was to be so, had felt glad, when he had looked out of his window in the morning, that he had put off the inauguration of his campaign amongst his own young birds in order to take part in it.
Joan and Nancy, in workmanlike tweeds, gave him smiling welcome. Previously, when he had shot at Kencote, and they had gone out with the guns, they had disputed amicably as to which of them should walk and stand with him, and the one who had won the dispute had taken bold possession of him. Neither did so this morning, and it was left to him to give an invitation.
"Well, Joan," he said, when they were ready to move off, "are you going to keep me company?"
"Yes," said Nancy instantly. "I am going with Uncle Herbert."