Thurso had laid down his knife and fork, and a huge grin was beginning to take the place of his horror.
“Go on, quick,” he said.
“I will. Mr. Cochrane had a rod, and I said I supposed he was going over to Scarsdale. No, he was not. So, with a slight addition of stiffness, I thanked him for his help, but said that this was your river. He explained. Oh, Thurso, did you ever? And I asked him to come and dine to-morrow, and eat some of his own fish. He is coming.”
Thurso shouted with laughter.
“Oh, what would I not give to have been there when the light broke on you!” he said. “And to ask him to dinner—add insult to injury! You were caught poaching—poaching, you know—and then you ask the rightful owner to have some. Did you tell him, by the way, that we were a typhoid hospital?”
“Yes; he didn’t mind.”
“Oh, Maud—oh, Maud! An American, too! He will probably telegraph an account of it to the New York press, and it will come out all over the States with enormous headlines!”
“Oh, I think not,” said she. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do it.”
Thurso recollected his own meeting with Cochrane.
“No, I don’t think he would,” he said. “Because I met him in the village yesterday evening, and I agree he doesn’t look like that. Go on.”