'
Isn't it exact? Grouse-driving in the morning--bridge, politics,
Cabinet-making, and the best of food in the evening. And I should put
our hostess very high--wouldn't you?--among the chatelaines of the
'great fortified posts'?"
Meadows assented, but rather languidly. The day was extremely hot; he
was tired, moreover, by a long walk with the guns the day before, and by
conversation after dinner, led by Lady Dunstable, which had lasted up to
nearly one o'clock in the morning. The talk had been brilliant, no
doubt. Meadows, however, did not feel that he had come off very well in
it. His hostess had deliberately pitted him against two of the ablest
men in England, and he was well aware that he had disappointed her. Lady
Dunstable had a way of behaving to her favourite author or artist of the
moment as though she were the fancier and he the cock. She fought him
against the other people's cocks with astonishing zeal and passion; and
whenever he failed to kill, or lost too many feathers in the process,
her annoyance was evident.
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