“For that matter, so were you.”
“Well, there’s an end of all that now.”
“Why so? Haven’t you shooting on your place in Ireland?”
“Shooting!” he repeated derisively. “About as much as is in St. James’s Park. Perhaps after a hard day’s work I might bag a brace of rabbits and one snipe. It’s been poached for years. My father was an old man, and let things slide——”
“Still, I suppose you will go over there and pull the place together a bit?”
“No, I could not stand it for more than a week; the loneliness and dreariness seem to penetrate to one’s very bones.”
“And you are not keen about living in town—eh? You are like a newly imported remount—everything is strange, and you don’t know what to do with yourself?”
“Yes, Johnny, you have hit the nail right on the head; and if you can give me some sort of lead, I’m your man.”
Major Sutton puffed at his cigar, removed it from his mouth, examined it carefully, and then blurted out—
“I say, why don’t you marry?”