“I hear you do great execution, Diana,” said Sir Thomas. “What do you shoot with?”
“A twenty-bore. I couldn’t carry a twelve-bore all day long, I’m sure.”
She turned good-naturedly to Rose, who was staring at her with enormous brown eyes.
“Do you shoot, Mrs. Aviolet?”
“Gracious, no.”
The expletive, savouring rather of Rose’s early surroundings than of her present ones, fell strangely across the atmosphere of the hall at Squires.
“You didn’t get any big-game shooting in the East, then. That’s what made me ask——” Diana said, as though feeling that an apology was perhaps required for the suggestion that had called forth so energetic a declaimer.
“Oh, Lord, no,” said Rose.
Ford coughed very gently.
“You’ve brought your fiddle, Diana, I hope,” said Lady Aviolet.