"
When he was seated again, and invited her to talk domestic affairs, she
returned from her reverie, and gathered in all her self-possession. The
estate, the household, the parish, the county: there was no mistaking his
interest in these matters. He was interested in the smallest particulars:
her broods of young chicks, her pigeons, the tabby cat's kittens, the
Rector's baby. He asked searching questions. How many cows were in milk
just now; when would Menzies have asparagus fit to eat? The servants--was
all well there? Their young men? Nothing escaped him. She was quite ready
for him, took a dry tone, showed a slight sense of the humour of the
situation, descended to trifles, had statistics at her fingers' ends. She
met him, in a word, as he wished to be met, as jointly concerned in these
minute affairs.
He lit a cigar, and drew her to the fire. He would have had her on his
knee, but she would not. She sat on a straight chair beside his easy one,
and allowed him to play with her hand.
He talked now in jerks, between puffs, of his adventures; his first shot
at a tiger, some trouble with hillmen at Peshawur, a row at a mess-table,
in which two chaps lost their heads, and one his papers.
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