"And ever since you have kept the incident in mind as proof positive of the modern woman's inefficiency in the field of Diana," she quickly replied.
"Not altogether," he said; "Diana's field was so broad." But Miss Noble was not scholar enough to feel the point of his meaning. She was ready enough, however, and responded:
"Oh, yes, the whole blue heaven to sail across; I had forgotten that her glory, after all, was mostly moonshine."
"We poor men have been unable to forget it since the dreadful fate of Acteon and the drowsy experience of Endymion; but if you will promise not to turn the weapon against me I shall be glad to let you try a beautiful little English twenty-gauge gun of mine when we find the game."
"How good of you," she exclaimed delightedly; "it will be charming. Don't tell mamma, she would ridicule me out of it."
"Never; I shall die with the secret, if need be. I would not miss seeing you fire your first shot for any thing."
"Now there," she exclaimed, "you can't quite be fair; there was something in your voice that suggested a lack of confidence in my nerve and ability, I shan't shut my eyes and dodge and—and—squeak."
"Of course not," said Reynolds, "I shall expect nothing of the kind. You will kill your bird handsomely, and I shall applaud you and give you encore and——"
"If you are going to make fun of me, I shall stay at home," she exclaimed with spirit. "I'm in earnest. I really wish to know how to shoot."
Reynolds' eyes involuntarily ran over the outlines of the girl's fine form and rested for a moment on her animated face. She was indeed in earnest, and she looked a perfect model for a Diana, so far as strength and symmetry went. True her bright, vivacious American face had nothing of the straight-cut Grecian severity of beauty, but it was a brave, self-reliant, earnest face, tinged with healthy blood and beaming with the spirit of girlish enterprise. It needed but a look into her eyes for one to know that she was as pure as a violet, with the charm of an infinite capacity for love hovering like a separate atmosphere about her. She was a woman in nothing but physique. Girlhood of the freshest and charmingest sort was apparent in all that she said and did. Reynolds felt her sweet, breeze-like influence pass over him with the effect of a rare fragrance. He gave himself up wholly to her mood. It was like romping in a furtive way, this light, free prattle with one so young, so frank, so childlike and so beautiful.