“When is this fellow coming out here?” he asked in a tone of irritation. His question was merely the result of his own train of thought. He had not been speaking of any one in particular.
“Who? Robb Chillingwood?”
“Yes, of course. I’ve not heard of any one else’s coming.”
“We’ve asked him for a fortnight to-day. Why?”
Hervey ran the cleaning-rod through a couple of the chambers of the pistol before he spoke again. The rag jammed in the barrel and entailed a hard pull to extract it.
“Who asked him to come?” he went on, as he re-adjusted the piece of rag in the eye of the rod.
“Mother did. He’s a very nice fellow.” Prudence looked over at the parade of “Shire” teams as they started for the fields. “Alice and he are engaged to be married, you know.”
“And I suppose he’s coming out here to ‘spoon’ her––ugh! It’s sickening.”
“Don’t be so brutal,” the girl replied sharply.