He was not in the best of humors for a collision with the captain, but Captain Murpoint greeted him ardently.
"None the worse for your weather yesterday, I see," he said, in his soft, silky voice. "I was just coming after you. Mr. Fairfax, who is the most inventive genius in the way of pleasure I have ever had the happiness of meeting, has set up a target and we are all shooting at it with arrows which remind me of nothing so much as the arrows which the Brahmins give their children to play with."
"Confound the Brahmins!" thought Leicester, but he walked by the side of the captain to where the clever Bertie had set the arrow pastime going, and then the captain left him to order some sherry and soda water.
Mrs. Mildmay begged him to light a cigar, and Leicester, who really wanted one, gave way.
He seated himself on a bench and watched the party, wondering whether Lord Fitz had finished his second wreath, and what the pair in the conservatory were doing now.
Presently he heard their laughing from the back of him, and it stung him to the quick.
"Confound her!" he muttered. "Why should I let her see her wickedness at flirting is cutting me up so? By Jove, I'll show her two can play at that game. I'll make up to Ethel Boisdale." So saying he drew his legs to the ground, pitched his cigar into the shrubbery and went up to Ethel.
"Now, Lady Boisdale," he said, "I am going to enter the lists, and I bet you a box of Jouvin's best—I have your size—that I hit the bull's-eye three times out of six."
"Oh, I shall bet," said Ethel, "because I am sure I shall win. Why, we have been trying ever so long, and have not hit it once."