The sportsmen were not long in making their appearance.  It was a rather warm day, and Mr. McCormack and Mr. Dodd, who were not accustomed to much exercise, I suppose, without ceremony mopped their heads.

Antony, who was walking behind, with Sir Samuel Wakely, appeared such an astonishingly cool contrast to them.  His coat did not look new, but as if it had seen service.  Only everything fitted and hung right, and he walks with an ease and grace that would have pleased grandmamma.

Augustus had a thunderous expression on his face.  So had Wilks, the head keeper.  Later, I gathered there had been a great quantity of birds, but the commercial friends had not been very successful in their destruction.  In fact, Mr. Dodd had only secured two brace, besides one of the beaters in the shoulder, and a dog.

Antony sat by me.

“Dangerous work, shooting,” he said, smiling, as he looked at the menu.  “What is your average list of killed in a pheasant battue?”

“What—­what kind of killed?” I asked, laughing.

“Guests or beaters or dogs—­anything but the birds.”

“Cutlets ha la ravigotte or ’ommard ha lamerican, Sir Antony?” the voice of the first footman sounded in our ears.

“Oh—­er—­get me a little Irish stew or some cold beef,” said Antony, plaintively, still with the menu in his hand.

“We’ve no—­Irish stew—­except what is prepared for the beaters, Sir Antony,” said James, apologetically.  He had come from a ducal house and knew the world.  “Shall I get you some of that, Sir Antony?”

“No, don’t mind.”  Then, turning to me, “What are you eating, Comtesse?” he asked.  “I will have some of that.”

“It is truffled partridge in aspic,” I said, disagreeably.  “You can pick out the truffles if you are afraid of them.”

“Truffled partridge, then,” he said to James, resignedly, and when it came he deliberately ate the truffles first.

“Hock, claret, Burgundy, or champagne, Sir Antony?” demanded the butler.

“Oh—­er—­I will have the whole four!”

His face had the most comical expression of chastened resignation as he glanced at me.

Griggson poured out bumpers in the four glasses.

“I shall now shoot like your friend from Liverpool,” said Antony, “and if I kill your husband and most of the guests I cannot be blamed for it,” and he drank down the hock.

“Don’t be so foolish,” I said, laughing, in spite of having pretended to be annoyed with him.

“I would drink anything rather than incur your displeasure,” he said, with great humility, as he took up the claret.  “Must I eat everything on the menu, too?”

I appeared not to hear, and turned to Mr. Dodd, who was on my other side, his usually pale face still crimson with walking so fast and this feast of Lucullus he was partaking of.

“I had bad luck this morning, Mrs. Gussie,” he said, in a humble voice.  “I am sorry about that man and dog, and I am afraid the gentleman on your right must have got a pellet also—­eh, sir?” and he addressed Antony.