"Well, boys," she said, "have you had good sport? Fifteen woodcock? How jolly!"
"And we should have got four more if Gertrude hadn't joined us," said Reggie. "Why did you let her come, mother?"
Gertrude looked at him in genuine, wide-eyed astonishment.
"What have I done, you stupid boy?" she exclaimed. "I only told you to hold your gun straighter; you were aiming at least five feet from the bird. Besides, it's horrid to kill woodcock; they're such jolly little beasts—birds, I mean."
"Then why did you tell me to aim straighter?" asked Reggie, with reason.
"Oh, I thought it would please you to kill them, my lord," she said. "At least, that's why you went out, wasn't it?"
Reggie was emptying his pockets of cartridges in the porch, and Gertrude was standing in the doorway, so that they were in comparative privacy.
"Would you rather please me than save the woodcock?" he asked softly.
"Reggie, I know those cartridges will go off if you drop them about so. Yes, oh the whole, I would. How dirty your hands are. Oh! is that blood on them?"