Again a silence fell, and Bunny came strolling back, a smile on his handsome boyish face.
"Fine place this," he remarked presently. "It's a pity Saltash is here so little. He only comes about three times a year, and then only for a couple of nights at a time. There's heaps of game in the woods and no one to shoot it."
"He probably knows his own business best," remarked Larpent.
"Oh, probably. But the place is wasted on him for all that." Bunny spoke with a frown. "Why on earth he doesn't marry and settle down I can't think. Can't you persuade him to?"
"No," said Larpent quite definitely.
Bunny glanced at him. "I don't know why not. I know he's considered to have gone the pace a bit, but after all he's no worse than a hundred others. Why the devil shouldn't he marry?"
Larpent shrugged his shoulders. "Don't ask me!" he said.
"Well, he ought to," maintained Bunny. "If you have any influence with him, you ought to persuade him to."
"I haven't," said Larpent.
Bunny flung away impatiently. "It's a confounded shame—a gorgeous family place like this and no one but servants to live in it!"