He showed signs of impatience.
"We have not exchanged half a dozen letters in our lives!" he said emphatically.
The lines of her face remained unsoftened. Her fierce grip on the child's shoulder did not relax.
"And this Frenchman—this Captain Rattier?" she asked. "What of him?"
His eyebrows expressed the intensity of his amazement.
"Paul Rattier is my distant cousin," he answered. "No finer gentleman walks the earth." He paused for a moment. "Is it permitted to inquire why you suspect—strangers?"
She did not answer him. An abstraction, real or feigned, seemed to have seized her. She stared out over his head into the distance with unseeing eyes as if she weighed problems, debated evidence, sought conclusions. It was the child who roused her into attention. He laughed, clapped his hands, and shouted.
"Browny!" he clamored in delight. "Browny!"
Aylmer looked round.
Rattier, leading a very melancholy and still bleeding horse, had approached with Despard. Together they were bending over the major's trophy, the dead boar. Behind them Aylmer's horse was hobbling painfully to its feet. Despard looked up and shook an admonishing finger at his acclaimer.