The Fighting Chance

He laughed--and there was malice in his eyes, but he did not know her well enough to pursue the subject through so easy an opening.

It had occurred to her, too, that her simile might invite elaboration, and she sensed the laugh in his silence, and liked him for remaining silent where he might easily have been wittily otherwise.

This set her so much at ease, left her so confident, that they were on terms of gayest understanding presently, she gossiping about the guests at Shotover House, outlining the diversions planned for the two weeks before them.

But we shall see little of one another; you will be shooting most of the time, she said--with the very faintest hint of challenge--too delicate, too impersonal to savour of coquetry. But the germ of it was there.

Do you shoot?

Yes; why?

I am reconciled to the shooting, then.

Oh, that is awfu