"Certainly I do. Is it because I've had a delightful chance to admonish
a sinner--and be--just a little sorry--that he had made such a silly
spectacle of himself?"

He laughed, wincing a trifle.

"Hence this agreeably righteous glow suffusing me," she concluded. "So
now that I have answered my own question, I think that we had better go.
. Don't you?"

They walked for a while, subdued, soberly picking their path through the
dusk. After a few moments she began to feel doubtful, a little uneasy,
partly from a reaction which was natural, partly because she was not at
all sure what either Quarrier or Major Belwether would think of the
terms she was already on with Siward. Suppose they objected? She had
never thwarted either of these gentlemen. Besides she already had a
temporary interest in Siward--the interest that women always cherish,
quite unconsciously, for the man whose shortcomings they have consented
to overlook.

As they crossed the headland, through the deepening dusk the acetylene
lamps on a cluster of motor cars spread a blinding light across the
scrub. The windows of Shotover House were brilliantly illuminated.

"Our shooting-party has returned," she said.

They crossed the drive through the white glare of the motor lamps;
people were passing, grooms with dogs and guns and fluffy bunches of
game-birds, several women in motor costumes, veils afloat, a man or two
in shooting-tweeds or khaki.