"Of chess. They used to play together three or four times a week--tremendous games. Until one evening my uncle insisted that your uncle had taken his hand off a piece, and wouldn't allow him to withdraw his move. Then the fur flew. Each called the other everything he could think of, and both had an extensive répertoire. The war which followed raged unceasingly; it's a mystery to me how they both managed to die in their beds."
"And all because of a dispute over a game of chess?"
"My uncle could quarrel about a less serious matter than a game of chess; he was a master of the art. He quarrelled with me--but that's another story; since when I've been in the out-of-the-way-corners of the world. I was in Northern Rhodesia when I heard that he was dead, and had left me Oak Dene. I don't know why-- except that there has always been a Morice at Oak Dene, and that I am the only remaining specimen of the breed."
"How strange. It is only recently that I learned--to my complete surprise--that Exham Park was mine."
"It seems that we are both of us indebted to our uncles, dead; though apparently we neither of us owed much to them while they still were living. Well, are the orders to be perpetuated that I'm to be shot when seen on this side of the fence?"
"I do not myself practise such methods."
"They are drastic; though there are occasions on which drastic methods are the kindest. Since I only arrived yesterday I take it that I am the latest comer. It is your duty, therefore, to call on me. Do you propose to do your duty?"
"I certainly do not propose to call on you, if that's what you mean."
"Good. Then I'll call on you. I shall have the pleasure, Miss Arnott, of waiting on you, on this side of the fence, at a very early date. Do you keep a shot gun in the hall?"
"Do you consider it good taste to persist in harping on a subject which you must perceive is distasteful?"