The smell
of gunpowder and the sight of stained feathers had co-
operated to brighten and cheer his mood. "I heard you
blazing away in great form. Did you get anything?"
Thorpe strove hard to give his voice a careless note.
"Let some of the boys run over," he said slowly.
"There are nine birds within sight, and there are two or
three in the bushes--but they may have got away."
"Gad!" said Balder.
"Magnificent!" was his brother's comment--and Thorpe
permitted himself the luxury of a long-drawn, beaming
sigh of triumph.
The roseate colouring of this triumph seemed really
to tint everything that remained of Thorpe's visit.
He set down to it without hesitation the visible
augmentation of deference to him among the servants.
The temptation was very great to believe that it had
affected the ladies of the house as well. He could not
say that they were more gracious to him, but certainly
they appeared to take him more for granted. In a hundred
little ways, he seemed to perceive that he was no longer
held mentally at arm's length as a stranger to their caste.
Of course, his own restored self-confidence could account
for much of this, but he clung to the whimsical conceit
that much was also due to the fact that he was the man
of the pheasants.
Sunday was bleak and stormy, and no one stirred out of
the house.
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