"How stupid of me!" she said. "Take mine."
He was feeling for the case. Kate wondered if he had heard. She watched him with a curious expression as he took a fresh one, then as he was feeling for a match she quickly leaned her face toward his, steadying her cigarette with her slender fingers. There was no evading it this time. To complicate matters, her hand shook ever so slightly, but enough to necessitate Lionel's holding it close against his.
"Thanks, awfully," said Lionel, puffing vigorously as he withdrew from the danger zone.
Kate watched the struggling spark with a look of half-amused suspense.
"Thanks! I have it," he added, a moment later, as he leaned back and exhaled an immense cloud of smoke.
Suddenly he jumped to his feet. "I must be getting back to my 'chores,' as old Baxter calls them."
Kate remained seated. "How soon do you go?" she asked in a tone of elaborate unconcern, made perfect by the preoccupation of dusting an imaginary cigarette ash from her knee.
"Go?" queried Lionel.
"To the farm?"
"Oh, yes, of course, the farm. I shall write to Uncle Cyril to-night. By Jove, won't he be surprised to hear I'm going in for farming and all that sort of thing? I'm afraid the old boy'll think I'm pulling his leg, but I'm not, Kate, upon my word, I'm in dead earnest. This working game has made another man of me. I never felt fitter in my life. I feel better every way, physically and," he hesitated, "yes, by Jove, morally." He paused breathless on this pinnacle of thought.