“And what about Mrs. Stanley?” poor Callander asked, in his matter-of-fact way, and Deb’s sense of humour stirred, and she laughed.
“How beautifully sane you are! I’ve made a fool of myself, I suppose, but I’m glad it’s to you and nobody else. You won’t give me away. I’m going alone, as I said, but you can come and unhook me if you see me sticking in a hedge.
“Though it would be wiser if you didn’t,” she added, with a fresh touch of bitterness. “I’m meat enough for the gossip-cats as it is. You should see them crowd to their doors and put out their ear-trumpets when Christian stops me in the street! But Father will want to know every yard of the run when we get back, so perhaps you had better keep near me, and then I can tell you things.”
“You know Crump like a book!” he said, smiling, and cursed himself, for she was back into her shell at once.
“Oh, indeed I don’t!” she replied curtly. “I’ve just picked up things through listening to Father, that’s all. They’re in the air—there’s no getting away from them, as you can see for yourself. It’s like having a chemist for a father, and learning all about pills. And it’s equally boring!” she added defiantly.
“That isn’t Roger Lyndesay’s child speaking!” he answered bluntly, preparing to take his leave. “Crump names are music on your tongue,—one’s only got to hark. Some day you’ll show me your real self. I can guess at it already, but some day I’ll see it whole!”
“And some day I’ll know why you would have married Stanley!” he added to himself, as he went away.
CHAPTER XIV
Deb opened her window to the soft, damp breath of a real hunting morning. The trees on the hillside showed weirdly through the gray mist. The river below looked like a tarnished ribbon run through an ancient cobweb veil. When the sun broke, it would be smooth silver, and the tree-trunks would be black, and the wet slope of the hill green as an emerald sheath.
From the kennels she could hear the eager hounds, already scenting the day’s sport, and smiled to find she could still distinguish between them—from the deep-throated note of old Conquest to Chanter’s steady baritone and the hysterical tremolo of young Mornington. The quiet air thrilled with the promise of vivid life soon to be unleashed upon its quest of death.