Lady Peggy laughed incredulously.
“Rubbish!” she exclaimed.
“Dear lady, it is nothing of the sort,” he answered, shaking his head sadly. “I have felt it growing upon me for years. Besides, it is hereditary. My mother opened a post-office savings bank account for me. At an early age I engineered a corner in marbles and sold out at a huge profit. I am like the starving dyspeptic at the rich man’s feast.”
Captain Austin intervened.
“I declare Diamonds,” he announced, and the hand proceeded.
Wilhelmina leaned back in her chair as the last trick fell. Her eyes were turned towards the window. She could just see the avenue of elms down which her agent had ridden a short while since. Deyes, through half closed eyes, watched her with some curiosity.
“If one dared offer a trifling coin of the realm——” he murmured.
“I was thinking of your theory,” she interrupted. “According to you, I suppose the whole world is made up of hunters and their quarry. Can you tell, I wonder, by looking at people, to which order they belong?”
“It is easy,” he answered. “Yet you must remember we are continually changing places. The man who cracks the whip to-day is the hunted beast to-morrow. The woman who mocks at her lover this afternoon is often the slave-bearer when dusk falls. Swift changes like this are like rain upon the earth. They keep us, at any rate, out of the asylums.”