"Sounds rather like a fox."
"I always think there's something so pure and strong and passionate about the soil. That's why I gave Ben a rural setting. The peasantry are so primitive. I'll tell you a secret. I'm really down here to study the setting for my next book."
"Are you writing another one now?"
"Oh, no," said Iris, in rather shocked accents. "I'm simply absorbing local colour in at every pore."
"You'd better come out on Salt Marsh this afternoon and see the wild duck. I've asked Mark to bring Mr. Garrett and we're going to have a shot at them."
Julian did not make the suggestion without first calculating the chances to be in favour of Miss Easter's declining the proposed arrangement. Nor did she fail to reply with the typical suburbanism:
"I can't bear seeing things killed, and I hate the noise of guns going off. Besides, it's so cold. But we'll come and meet you at tea-time."
"We?"
"Oh, I'm going to take that girl that Mark likes so much for a walk. He says she never has anyone to talk to."
"Miss Marchrose?"