At eleven o’clock Claude de Chauxville returned alone, on horseback. After the sportsmen had separated, each to gain his prearranged position in the forest, he had tripped over his rifle, seriously injuring the delicate sighting mechanism. He found (he told the servant who opened the door for him) that he had just time to return for another rifle before the operation of closing in on the bears was to begin.
“If Madame the Princess,” was visible, he went on, would the servant tell her that M. de Chauxville was waiting in the library to assure her that there was absolutely no danger to be anticipated in the day’s sport. The princess, it would appear, was absurdly anxious about the welfare of her husband—an experienced hunter and a dead shot.
Claude de Chauxville then went to the library, where he waited, booted, spurred, rifle in hand, for Etta.
After a lapse of five minutes or more, the door was opened, and Etta came leisurely into the room.
“Well?” she enquired indifferently.
De Chauxville bowed. He walked past her and closed the door, which she happened to have left open.
Then he returned and stood by the window, leaning gracefully on his rifle. His attitude, his hunting-suit, his great top-boots, made rather a picturesque object of him.
“Well?” repeated Etta, almost insolently.
“It would have been wiser to have married me,” said De Chauxville darkly.
Etta shrugged her shoulders.