Roger Trenby regarded her doubtfully. She was extraordinarily attractive, this slim young woman from London who was staying at Mallow, but she not infrequently gave utterances to remarks which, although apparently straight-forward enough, yet filled him with a vague, uneasy feeling that they held some undercurrent of significance which had eluded him.
He skirted the quicksand hastily, and turned the conversation to a subject where be felt himself on sure ground.
"I've been exercising hounds to-day."
Trenby was Master of the Trevithick Foxhounds, and had the reputation of being one of the finest huntsmen in the county, and his heart and his pluck and a great deal of his money went to the preserving of it.
"Oh," cried Nan warmly, "why didn't you bring them round by Mallow before you went back to the kennels?"
"We didn't come coastward at all," he replied. "I never thought of your caring to see them."
Nan was not in the least a sportswoman by nature, though she had hunted as a child—albeit much against her will—to satisfy the whim of a father who had been a dare-devil rider across country and had found his joy in life—and finally his death—in the hunting field he had loved. But she was a lover of animals, like most people of artistic temperament, and her reply was enthusiastic.
"Of course I'd like to have seen them!"
Roger's face brightened.
"Then will you let me show you the kennels one day? I could motor over for you and bring you back afterwards."