Furley grunted.
“You don’t want to join the noble army of gas bags,” he said. “Much better make up your mind that it was a dream.”
“There are times,” Julian confided, “when I am not quite sure that it wasn’t.”
CHAPTER III
Julian entered the drawing-room at Maltenby Hall a few minutes before dinner time that evening. His mother, who was alone and, for a wonder, resting, held out her hand for him to kiss and welcomed him with a charming smile. Notwithstanding her grey hair, she was still a remarkably young-looking woman, with a great reputation as a hostess.
“My dear Julian,” she exclaimed, “you look like a ghost! Don’t tell me that you had to sit up all night to shoot those wretched duck?”
Julian drew a chair to his mother’s side and seated himself with a little air of relief.
“Never have I been more conscious of the inroads of age,” he confided. “I can remember when, ten or fifteen years ago, I used to steal out of the house in the darkness and bicycle down to the marsh with a twenty-bore gun, on the chance of an odd shot.”
“And I suppose,” his mother went on, “after spending half the night wading about in the salt water, you spent the other half talking to that terrible Mr. Furley.”