“I distinctly said you were not, and that I should reserve the matter for future consideration.”
“But the advantage was all on my side.”
“Thank you. I suppose because you could not see my face.”
“That is simply a diabolical explanation. I hope you may lose your next fish.”
“Don’t. I can bear any form of malice but that. I have gone salmon-mad, like the rest of you.”
“I retract,” he said. “Isn’t this hunting and fishing instinct curious? I suppose it got ingrained ages ago, in the days when our forebears were getting their daily diet by the use of the club and spear. If you could shoot, would you like that?”
He did not want her to say yes, and she did say, “No; I set my sporting limits at the salmon.”
“That is to say, pretty well up the scale. I confess that for me salmon-fishing is the noblest of the sports.”
“Why is it? For myself, I like it; I hardly know why. But I want to hear why you speak of it so warmly. You shoot, of course?”
“Yes. All manner of things, when I get the time. As to this fishing, I don’t think I spoke at random. It requires some skill,—not too much, or too intense attention. One is free to mix it with a book, or with deep thinkings, or with the laziest mind-idleness. Then, too, one’s curiosity is kept up by the unguessable riddles of the ways of salmon. We know no more about salmon than we know about—well, I leave you to fill the gap.”