"Is it quite hopeless?" she asked him that evening.
"Quite! As far removed from possibility as I am from a seat in the Cabinet."
"But you might if you took up politics."
"Exactly, the point of absolute certainty being that I never shall."
She waited awhile, letting the conversation drift as it liked; then she dipped her oar again.
"Do you ever hunt or shoot now?"
"Hunt, yes, for jobs. I've made that feeble joke before to somebody else. No—neither."
"We had some rather good days with the pheasants this year down at Apsley."
"Did you?"
"Yes, Harold got sixty-seven birds one day."