see her come into a drawing-room—­her walk and manner are simply splendid.  She’ll never marry,” continued this garrulous little person, with the coquettish pince-nez perched on her not too Grecian nose.  “I’m sure she won’t.  She despises men—­all of them except her brother, Sir Hugh.  Lord Rockminster admires her tremendously, but he’s too lazy to say so, I suppose.  How has she taken such a fancy to you?”

“I was not aware she had,” Lionel discreetly made answer, though the question had startled him, and not with pain.

“Oh, yes, she has.  Did she think you were lone and unprotected, being persecuted by the rest of us?  I am quite certain she wouldn’t allow my brother Percy to go fishing a whole day with her; most likely Lord Rockminster wouldn’t care to take the trouble.  I wonder if she hasn’t a bit of a temper?  Lady Rosamund is awful sometimes; but she doesn’t show that to you—­catch her!  But Honnor Cunyngham—­well, the only time I ever went with her on one of her storking expeditions, the water was low, and she thrashed away for hours, and saw nothing.  At last a stot happened to come wandering along; and she said, quite savagely, ’I’m going to hook something!’ You don’t know what a stot is?—­it’s a young bullock.  So she deliberately walked to within twenty yards or so of the animal, threw the line so that it just dropped across its neck, and the fly caught in the thick hair.  You should have seen the gay performance that followed!  The beast shook its head and shook its head—­for it could feel the line, if it couldn’t feel the fly; and then, getting alarmed, it started off up the hill, with the reel squealing just as if a salmon were on, and Honnor running after him as hard as she could over the bracken and heather.  If it were rage made her hook the stot, she was laughing now—­laughing so that when the beast stopped she could hardly reel in the line.  And old Robert—­I thought he would have had a fit.  ‘Will I gaff him now, Miss Honnor?’ he cried, as he came running along.  But the stot didn’t mean to be gaffed.  Off it set again; and Honnor after it, until at last it caught the line in a birch-bush and broke it; then, just as if nothing had happened, it began to graze, as usual.  You should have seen the game that began then—­old Robert and Honnor trying to get hold of the stot, so as to take the casting-line and the fly from its mane—­it isn’t a mane, but you know—­and the stot trying to butt them whenever they came near.  The end of it was that the beast shook off the fly for itself, and old Robert found it; but I wonder whether it were real rage that made Honnor Cunyngham hook the stot—­”

“Of course not!” he said.  “It was a mere piece of fun.”