“Well, if you are idiot enough to ask that in sober earnest, I am not fool enough to reply in kind. And so Miss Lyndsay knows who her bowman was?”
“Yes.”
“Did she like it?”
“How the deuce do I know?”
“But I should think you could tell. I hope that girl lost her temper. Girls who can’t lose their tempers can’t lose their hearts. That’s pretty good, Fred!”
“Nonsense! Who wants her to lose her heart? You can judge for yourself, if you are curious—we are to breakfast with them to-morrow. Get any fish?”
“One—only ten pounds. The new run is up, Pierre says. Saw plenty of small fish leaping. But about these Lyndsays?”
“Let’s have supper. Hang the Lyndsays!”
“Both, with all my heart; and I will also suspend my opinions, if it suits you better. Wasn’t bad, that!” And then, as Fred walked away to stir up the cook, Ellett muttered, “What the mischief’s gone wrong with the man?” And so, being a kindly fellow and considerate, as far as he knew how to evolve in action this form of social wisdom, he dropped the subject for the evening, and, as Miss Anne used to say, “left time to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, when they were cool enough to be useful as diet.”