s on a miserable day when a faint puff comes from the
sea and the mist would lift if it could. And the butler refilled my
glass very attentively. I asked her first if she hunted, and paused
and began my story. I told her where we had found the fox and how fast
and straight he had gone, and how I had got through the village by
keeping to the road, while the little gardens and wire, and then the
river, had stopped the rest of the field. I told her the kind of
country that we crossed and how splendid it looked in the Spring, and
how mysterious the valleys were as soon as the twilight came, and what
a glorious horse I had and how wonderfully he went. I was so fearfully
thirsty after the great hunt that I had to stop for a moment now and
then, but I went on with my description of that famous run, for I had
warmed to the subject, and after all there was nobody to tell of it
but me except my old whipper-in, and "the old fellow's probably drunk
by now," I thought. I described to her minutely the exact spot in the
run at which it had come to me clearly that this was going to be the
greatest hunt in the whole history of Kent. Sometimes I forgot
incidents that had happened as one well may in a run of twenty miles,
and then I had to fill in the gaps by inventing. I was pleased to be
able to make the party go off well by means of my conversation, and
besides that the lady to whom I was speaking was extremely pretty: I
do not mean in a flesh and blood kind of way but there were little
shadowy lines about the chair beside me that hinted at an unusually
graceful figure when Miss Rosalind Smith was alive; and I began to
perceive that what I first mistook for the smoke of guttering candles
and a table-cloth waving in the draught was in reality an extremely
animated company who listened, and not without interest, to my story
of by far the greatest hunt that the world had ever known: indeed I
told them that I would confidently go further and predict that never
in the history of the world would there be such a run again. Only my
throat was terribly dry. And then as it seemed they wanted to hear
more about my horse. I had forgotten that I had come there on a horse,
but when they reminded me it all came back; they looked so charming
leaning over the table intent upon what I said, that I told them
everything they wanted to know. Everything was going so pleasantly if
only Sir Richard would cheer up. I heard his mournful voice every now
and then-