"It is a quarter past now," said Anthony, looking at his watch in the moonlight. "Don't go in, Mrs. Fielden. Wait out here, and talk to Hugo and me."
But old Finlayson in his kilt had tracked us to our seat underneath the beech-trees, and he took instant possession of our fair neighbour, and told us to follow presently. He thought all the supper-tables were full just now.
"We shan't eat everything before you come," said hospitable old Finlayson, walking away with his beautiful partner on his arm.
Mrs. Fielden was dressed in white satin, with some pretty soft stuff about her, and she wore some white heather in her hair.
"What a good sort she is!" said Anthony in a loud voice, almost before Mrs. Fielden was out of hearing.
It wasn't, perhaps, the most poetical way in which he could have put it, but one didn't want or expect Anthony to express himself poetically.
"Utterly spoilt!" I replied, because at that moment I happened to be feeling supremely miserable, and I did not want Anthony to know it.
"Not a bit," he replied; "and you know that as well as I do, old chap."
"Allow me, Anthony," I said, "to be as savage as I like; it is one of the privileges of a cripple."
"Oh, blow cripples!" said Anthony. "You will be shooting next autumn, man."