Part 10 (1/2)
He shrugged his shoulders. ”It is not really surprising, is it? Lucas has been on the shelf for the past ten years and I”--he glanced at her shrewdly--”have not!”
”Oh!” said Anne, and asked no more.
For the first time the definite question arose in her mind as to whether in admitting this man to her friends.h.i.+p she had made a mistake. He had a disquieting effect upon her, she was forced to acknowledge.
Yet as they drifted apart in the throng she knew with unalterable conviction that the matter did not rest with her. From the outset the choice had not been hers.
He had entered the gates of her lonely citadel on the night of the Hunt Ball, and though she was by no means sure that she liked him there, she fully realised that it was too late now to try to bar him out.
CHAPTER VII
THE FALL
They found a fox after some delay in a copse on the side of a hill, and the run that followed scattered even Anne's sedateness to the winds.
Something of youth, something of girlishness, yet dwelt within her and bounded to the surface in response to the wild excitement of the chase.
The grey went like the wind. He and the black mare that Nap Errol rode led the field, a distinction that Anne had never sought before, and which she did not greatly appreciate on this occasion. For when they killed in a chalky hollow, after half-an-hour's furious galloping across country with scarcely a check, she dragged her animal round with a white, set face and forced him from the scene.
Nap followed her after a little and found her fumbling at a gate into a wood.
”I've secured the brush for you,” he began. Then, seeing her face, ”What is it? You look sick.”
”I feel sick,” Anne said shakily.
He opened the gate for her, and followed her through. They found themselves alone, separated from the rest of the hunt by a thick belt of trees.
”Do you mean to say you have never seen a kill before?” he said.
”Never at close quarters,” murmured Anne, with a shudder.
He rode for a little in silence. At length, ”I'm sorry you didn't like being in at the death,” he said. ”I thought you would be pleased.”
”Pleased!” she said, and shuddered again.
”Personally,” said Nap, ”I enjoy a kill.”
Anne's face expressed horror.
”Yes,” he said recklessly, ”I am like that. I hunt to kill. It is my nature.” A red gleam shone suddenly in his fiery eyes. He looked at her aggressively. ”What do you hunt for anyway?” he demanded.
”I don't think I shall hunt any more,” she said.
”Oh, nonsense, Lady Carfax! That's being ultrasqueamish,” he protested.
”You mustn't, you know. It's bad for you.”
”I can't help it,” she said. ”I never realised before how cruel it is.”
”Of course it's cruel,” said Nap. ”But then so is everything, so is life.