"Fancy our forgathering on the hill top like this! Making any stay?"
"A few weeks—I've come for a shoot."
"Lucky chap! Well, I hope you'll have good sport. Can I get you anything, dear lady?" turning to Mrs. Ffinch with anxious solicitude.
"Yes, a match; I'm simply dying for a smoke."
As he bent over her, Mayne rose and relinquished his chair to Mrs. Hicks, who painfully out of breath, was clamouring for "a real big tumbler of hiced 'Ock cup."
The refreshment table was now besieged by a noisy intimate and animated crowd, making fixtures for tennis, picnics, or shoots; in short all manner of social meetings and amenities, and into the midst of them, Mrs. Ffinch glided, in order to contribute her veto, arguments, commands, or consent.
Presently the sudden Indian dusk began to fall, enshrouding the view; a cold blue haze was creeping nearer and nearer, and the congenial company prepared to disperse.
A great "Napier" car belonging to "Clouds Rest" lingered after the Hicks, Meaches, and Pollards had ridden away, and when the lamps were lighted, Mrs. Ffinch said:
"Captain Mayne, I do hope we shall often see you; when Laurence Travers is busy, come up to us. Nancy child, good-bye," embracing her with motherly affection; "I intend to steal your new friend—whenever he is bored here, send him to me," and with these words still trembling in the air, the great motor slid silently away.
"That was not very complimentary to you, was it?" said Mayne, turning to Nancy.