res,
stood at a short distance; the tails of some dogs were seen moving
humbly, and a valet opening bottles. Shelton had forgotten that it was
"the first." The host was a soldierly and freckled man; an older man sat
next him, square-jawed, with an absent-looking eye and sharpened nose;
next him, again, there was a bearded person whom they seemed to call the
Commodore; in the fourth, to his alarm, Shelton recognised the gentleman
called Mabbey. It was really no matter for surprise to meet him miles
from his own place, for he was one of those who wander with a valet and
two guns from the twelfth of August to the end of January, and are then
supposed to go to Monte Carlo or to sleep until the twelfth of August
comes again.

He was speaking.

"Did you hear what a bag we made on the twelfth, Sir James?"

"Ah! yes; what was that? Have you sold your bay horse, Glennie?"

Shelton had not decided whether or no to sneak away, when the
Commodore's thick voice began:

"My man tellsh me that Mrs. Foliot--haw--has lamed her Arab. Does she
mean to come out cubbing?"

Shelton observed the smile that came on all their faces. "Foliot 's
paying for his good time now; what a donkey to get caught!" it seemed to
say. He turned his back and shut his eyes.

"Cubbing?" replied Glennie; "hardly."

"Never could shee anything wonderful in her looks," went on the
Commodore; "so quiet, you never knew that she was in the room. I
remember sayin' to her once, 'Mrs. Lutheran, now what do you like besht
in all the world?' and what do you think she answered? 'Music!' Haw!"

The voice of Mabbey said:

"He was always a dark horse, Foliot: It 's always the dark horses that
get let in for this kind of thing"; and there was a sound as though he
licked his lips.

"They say," said the voice of the host, "he never gives you back a
greeting now. Queer fish; they say that she's devoted to him."

Coming so closely on his meeting with this lady, and on the dream from
which he had awakened, this conversation mesmerised the listener behind
the hedge.

"If he gives up his huntin' and his shootin', I don't see what the deuce
he 'll do; he's resigned his clubs; as to his chance of Parliament--"
said the voice of Mabbey.

"Thousand pities," said Sir James; "still, he knew what to expect."

"Very queer fellows, those Foliots," said the Commodore. "There was his
father: he 'd always rather talk to any scarecrow he came across than to
you or me. Wonder wha