"If I knew there were but one fox in a county, and I got upon that one fox, I would like to kill that one fox—barring a vixen in March."
"I thought it very nice. It was fast enough for anybody."
"You might go as fast with a drag, if that's all. I'll tell you something else. We should have killed him if Maule hadn't once ridden over the hounds when we came out of the little wood. I spoke very sharply to him."
"I heard you, Lord Chiltern."
"And I suppose you thought I was a brute."
"Who? I? No, I didn't;—not particularly, you know. Men do say such things to each other!"
"He doesn't mind it, I fancy."
"I suppose a man does not like to be told that directly he shows himself in a run the sport is all over and the hounds ought to be taken home."
"Did I say that? I don't remember now what I said, but I know he made me angry. Come, let us trot on. They can take the hounds home without us."
"Good night, Cox," said Miss Palliser, as they passed by the pack. "Poor Mr. Maule! I did pity him, and I do think he does care for it, though he is so impassive. He would be with us now, only he is chewing the cud of his unhappiness in solitude half a mile behind us."
"That is hard upon you."
"Hard upon me, Lord Chiltern! It is hard upon him, and, perhaps, upon you. Why should it be hard upon me?"
"Hard upon him, I should have said. Though why it shouldn't be the other way I don't know. He's a friend of yours."
"Certainly."
"And an especial friend, I suppose. As a matter of course Violet talks to me about you both."
"No doubt she does. When once a woman is married she should be regarded as having thrown off her allegiance to her own sex. She is sure to be treacherous at any rate in one direction. Not that Lady Chiltern can tell anything of me that might not be told to all the world as far as I am concerned."
"There is nothing in it, then?"
"Nothing at all."
"Honour bright?"
"Oh—honour as bright as it ever is in such matters as these."
"I am sorry for that—very sorry."
"Why so, Lord Chiltern?"
"Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might have induced him to ride a little less forward."
"Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser, seriously; "I will never again speak to you a word on any subject except hunting."
At this moment Gerard Maule came up behind them, with a cigar in his mouth, apparently quite unconscious of any of that displeasure as to which Miss Palliser had supposed that he was chewing the cud in solitude. "That was a goodish thing, Chiltern," he said.
"Very good."
"And the hounds hunted him well to the end."
"Very well."
"It's odd how the scent will die away at a moment. You see they couldn't carry on a field after we got out of the copse."
"Not a field."
"Considering all things I am glad we didn't kill him."
"Uncommon glad," said Lord Chiltern. Then they trotted on in silence a little way, and Maule again dropped behind. "I'm blessed if he knows that I spoke to him, roughly," said Chiltern. "He's deaf, I think, when he chooses to be."
"You're not sorry, Lord Chiltern."
"Not in the least. Nothing will ever do any good. As for offending him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it. There's comfort in that, anyway. I wonder whether he'd talk to you if I went away?"
"I hope that you won't try the experiment."
"I don't believe he would, or I'd go at once. I wonder whether you really do care for him?"
"Not in the least."
"Or he for you."
"Quite indifferent, I should say; but I can't answer for him, Lord Chiltern, quite as positively as I can for myself. You know, as things go, people have to play at caring for each other."
"That's what we call flirting."
"Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage. This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection."
"If Maule perseveres then you'll take him, and by-and-bye you'll come to like him."
"In twenty years it might come to that, if we were always to live in the same house; but as he leaves Harrington to-morrow, and we may probably not meet each other for the next four years, I think the chance is small."
Then Maule trotted up again, and after riding in silence with the other two for half an hour, he pulled out his case and lit a fresh cigar from the end of the old one, which he threw away. "Have a baccy, Chiltern?" he said.
"No, thank you, I never smoke going home; my mind is too full. I've all that family behind to think of, and I'm generally out of sorts with the miseries of the day. I must say another word to Cox, or I should have to go to the kennels on my way home." And so he dropped behind.
Gerard Maule smoked half his cigar before he spoke a word, and Miss Palliser was quite resolved that she would not open her mouth till he had spoken. "I suppose he likes it?" he said at last.
"Who likes what, Mr. Maule?"
"Chiltern likes blowing fellows up."
"It's a part of his business."
"That's the way I look at it. But I should think it must be disagreeable. He takes such a deal of trouble about it. I heard him going on to-day to some one as though his whole soul depended on it."
"He is very energetic."
"Just so. I'm quite sure it's a mistake. What does a man ever get by it? Folks around you soon discount it till it goes for nothing."
"I don't think energy goes for nothing, Mr. Maule."
"A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental, but there can be no doubt of his energy. The hare was full of energy, but he didn't win the race. The man who stands still is the man who keeps his ground."
"You don't stand still when you're out hunting."
"No;—I ride about, and Chiltern swears at me. Every man is a fool sometimes."
"And your wisdom, perfect at all other times, breaks down in the hunting-field?"
"I don't in the least mind your chaffing. I know what you think of me just as well as though you told me."
"What do I think of you?"
"That I'm a poor creature, generally half asleep, shallow-pated, slow-blooded, ignorant, useless, and unambitious."
"Certainly unambitious, Mr. Maule."
"And that word carries all the others. What's the good of ambition? There's the man they were talking about last night—that Irishman."
"Mr. Finn?"
"Yes; Phineas Finn. He is an ambitious fellow. He'll have to starve, according to what Chiltern was saying. I've sense enough to know I can't do any good."
"You are sensible, I admit."
"Very well, Miss Palliser. You can say just what you like, of course. You have that privilege."
"I did not mean to say anything severe. I do admit that you are master of a certain philosophy, for which much may be said.