Vixen winced. These careless references to the dead hurt her more than the silence of complete oblivion. To remember, and to be able to speak so lightly. That seemed horrible.
"I doubt if I shall hunt much this season," pursued Captain Winstanley, as much as to say that he was not going to be grateful to the new master of the foxhounds as a public benefactor, however many hundreds that gentleman might disburse in order to make up the shortcomings of a scanty subscription. "I shall have a great deal to occupy me. This place has been much neglected—naturally—within the last few years. There is no end of work to be done."
"Are you going to pull down the Abbey House and build an Italian villa on its site?" asked Vixen, her upper lip curling angrily. "That would be rather a pity. Some people think it a fine old place, and it has been in my father's family since the reign of Henry the Eighth."
To the Captain's ear this speech had a covert insolence. The Abbey House was to belong to Violet in the future. Neither he nor his wife had a right to touch a stone of it. Indeed, it was by no means clear to him that there might not be ground for a Chancery suit in his cutting down a tree.
"I hope I shall do nothing injudicious," he said politely.
"My aunt will be back in a week or two, Mrs. Winstanley," said Roderick. "I shall bring her over to see you directly she settles down at Ashbourne. And now I think I'd better be off; I've a long walk home, and you must be too tired to care about talking or being talked to."
"I am very tired," answered Mrs. Winstanley languidly; "but I should have liked to hear all your news."
"I'm afraid that's not much. I only came home last night; I have been shooting grouse in Renfrew."
"Plenty of birds this year?" inquired the Captain, with a languid interest.
"Pretty fair. The rainy spring killed a good many of the young birds."