"Oh—half a jiff," returns he, totally unabashed.
Presently tea is brought, and they are all happy, notably Dicky, who walks round and into the cakes with unceasing fervor.
"By-the-by, I wonder Stephen hasn't been here to-day," says Julia, addressing no one in particular.
"Something better to do, perhaps," says Portia.
"Yes—where can he be?" says Dulce, waking into sudden animation. "'Something better to do?' Why, what could that be?"
"Writing sonnets to your eyebrow," answers Roger in an unpleasant tone.
"How clever you are!" retorts she, in a tone even more unpleasant, letting her white lids fall until they half-conceal the scorn in her eyes. Only half!
"He is such a jail bird—I beg his pardon, a town bird," says Sir Mark, lazily, "that I didn't think anything could keep him in the country so long. Yet, he doesn't look bored. He bears the solitary confinement very well."
"There is shooting, isn't there?" suggests Portia.
"Any amount of it," says Dicky; "but that don't solve the mystery. He couldn't shoot a haystack flying, not if his life depended on it. It's suicide to go out with him! He'd as soon shoot you or me as anything else. I always say the grouse ought to love him; because I don't believe he knows the barrel of his gun from the stock."