“Sometimes. I shoot with Lord Oakleigh on Monday.”
“That will not be of much use to us women.”
“But I shall venture to call, and inquire for—”
“For Watkins,” Anne broke in with a laugh. “Hers will be the sufferings. We mistresses are made of sterner stuff. Well, we all have what we ask for, and depend upon it, Watkins will get her sympathy.”
He inquired whether her stay would be long. She smiled at the idea.
“You know what these autumn campaigns are like. A flying two or three days, then, bag and baggage, away to the next station. A ‘prest’ day no longer exists. You would discomfit your host and hostess very much by staying.”
“Where has the change come from?”
“From superhuman efforts to exorcise the fiend—dullness. He is the only evil power which the century has not whitewashed, and he takes advantage of his position to keep us all in thraldom. The very flutter of his shadow is enough.”
She lapsed into silence. The wood by this time lay behind them, and before, a rich country of broad outlines. The sky had lost its fire, heavy clouds menaced, once or twice Wareham thought he felt a drop of rain. Saying this to Anne, she turned her face upward. “Have we much further to go?”
“A quarter of a mile to the lodge, half to the house. You can just see the red chimneys.”