"There aren't any of either," said Lady Conybeare.
She sat up very straight in her chair as she made this surprising assertion, and arranged the lace round her throat. Her attitude gave one the impression somehow of a rakish frigate clearing for action, and on the moment came the first shot.
"I am a prude," said a low, bass voice at her elbow.
Kit scarcely glanced round.
"I know you are," she said, replying with a heavy broadside; "but then you are not a man."
"That depends on what you mean by a man," said the voice again.
The speaker was so hidden by the arms of the low chair in which he sat, that a knee, shin and foot, in a horizontal line on the invisible support of another knee, was all that could be seen of him.
"I mean a human being who likes killing things," said Kit without hesitation.
"I killed a wasp yesterday," said the voice; "at least, I think it died afterwards. Certainly I disabled it. Oh, I am sure I killed it."