“I am afraid you would be a disturbing influence,” he said gallantly.
“I shouldn’t disturb you,” she said, with the pertness of a spoilt child. “I am a good shot myself. I can go—can’t I, papa?”
Mr. Randolph smiled indulgently. “You can do anything you like, my darling,” he said. “I wonder you condescend to ask.”
Nina ran over and kissed him, then propped her chin on top of his head and looked defiantly at Thorpe.
“If you don’t take me,” she remarked, drily, “there will be no hunt.”
“On the whole, I think my mind would concentrate better if you were not absent,” he said.
She blew him a kiss. “You are improving. Hasta luego! I must go and smooth my feathers.” And she ran out of the room.
The two men talked of the threatened civil upheaval in the United States until dinner was announced, a half hour later.
Mrs. Randolph did not appear until the soup had been removed. She entered the dining-room hurriedly, muttering an apology. Her toilette had evidently been made in haste: her brooch was awry; and her hair, banded down the face after the fashion of the time, hung an inch below one ear and exposed the lobe of the other, dealing detrimentally with her dignity, despite her fine physique.