“Pursuit! That is the cursed word. A pursuit that maddens because it never overtakes.”
“Not a bad line, that—for you,” said Mr. Etheredge. “But in love, remember, ‘they fly that wound, and they pursue that die.’”
But Buckingham raved on without heeding the gibe, his voice suddenly thick with passion. “I have the hunter’s instinct, I suppose. The prey that eludes me is the prey that at all costs must be reduced into possession. Can’t you understand?”
“No, thank God! I happen to retain my sanity. Come into the country, man, and recover yours. It’s waiting for you there amid the buttercups.”
“Pshaw!” Buckingham turned from him again with an ill-humoured shrug.
“Is that your answer?”
“It is. Don’t let me detain you.”
Etheredge got up, and went to set a hand upon his arm.
“If you stay, and at such a time, you must have some definite purpose in your mind. What is it?”
“What was in my mind before you came to trouble it, George. To end the matter where I should have begun it.” And he adapted three lines of Suckling’s: