"What does he want to shoot in July? It's too late for rooks," said Sir Thorald, pouring out champagne-cup for Barbara Lisle.
"I don't know where Jack went," said Dorothy. "He heard one of the keepers complain of the hawks, so, I suppose, he took a gun. I wonder why that strange Lorraine de Nesville doesn't come to call. I am simply dying to see her."
"I saw her once," observed Sir Thorald.
"You generally do," added his wife.
"What?"
"See what others don't."
Sir Thorald, a trifle disconcerted, applied himself to caviare and, later, to a bottle of Moselle.
"She's a beauty, they say--" began Ricky, and might have continued had he not caught the danger-signal in Molly Hesketh's black eyes.
"Lorraine de Nesville," said Lady Hesketh, "is only a child of seventeen. Her father makes balloons."
"Not the little, red, squeaky kind," added Sir Thorald; "Molly, he is an amateur aeronaut."
"He'd much better take care of Lorraine. The poor child runs wild all over the country. They say she rides like a witch on a broom--"
"Astride?" cried Sir Thorald.
"For shame!" said his wife; "I--I--upon my word, I have heard that she has done that, too. Ricky! what do you mean by yawning?"
Ricky had been listening, mouth open. He shut it hurriedly and grew pink to the roots of his colourless hair.
Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil, and Dorothy Marche laughed.
"What of it?" she said; "there is nobody here who would dare to!"
"Oh, shocking!" said little Alixe, and tried to look as though she meant it.
At that moment Sir Thorald caught sight of Jack Marche, strolling up through the trees, gun tucked under his left arm.
"No luncheon, no salad, no champagne-cup, no cigarette!" he called; "all gone! all gone! Molly's smoked my last--"
"Jack Marche, where have you been?" demanded Molly Hesketh. "No, you needn't dodge my accusing finger! Barbara, look at him!"
"It's a pretty finger--if Sir Thorald will permit me to say so," said Jack, laughing and setting his gun up against a tree. "Dorrie, didn't you save any salad? Ricky, you devouring scourge, there's not a bit of caviare! I'm hungry--Oh, thanks, Betty, you did think of the prodigal, didn't you?"
"It was Cecil," she said, slyly; "I was saving it for him. What did you shoot, Jack?"
"Now you people listen and I'll tell you what I didn't shoot."
"A poor little hawk?" asked Betty.
"No--a poor little wolf!"
In the midst of cries of astonishment and exclamations Sir Thorald arose, waving a napkin.
"I knew it!" he said--"I knew I saw a wolf in the woods day before yesterday, but I didn't dare tell Molly; she never believes me."