The fact that he added nothing else and met a rapid side glance with unmoving red-brown eyes gazing out from under rugged brows, perhaps irritated Anstruthers. He had been rather enjoying himself, but he had not enjoyed himself enough. There was no denying that his plaything had not openly flinched. Plainly he was not good at flinching. Anstruthers wondered how far a man might go. He tried again. “She likes the place, though she has a natural disdain for its condition. That is practical American. Things which are going to pieces because money is not spent upon them--mere money, of which all the people who count for anything have so much--are inevitably rather disdained. They are 'out of it.' But she likes the estate.” As he watched Mount Dunstan he felt sure he had got it at last--the right thing. “If you were a duke with fifty thousand a year,” with a distinctly nasty, amicably humorous, faint laugh, “she would--by the Lord, I believe, she would take it over--and you with it.” Mount Dunstan got up. In his rough walking tweeds he looked over-big--and heavy--and perilous. For two seconds Nigel Anstruthers would not have been surprised if he had without warning slapped his face, or knocked him over, or whirled him out of his chair and kicked him. He would not have liked it, but--for two seconds--it would have been no surprise. In fact, he instinctively braced his not too firm muscles. But nothing of the sort occurred. During the two seconds--perhaps three--Mount Dunstan stood still and looked down at him. The brief space at an end, he walked over to the hearth and stood with his back to the big fireplace. “You don't like her,” he said, and his manner was that of a man dealing with a matter of fact. “Why do you talk about her?” He had got away again--quite away. An ugly flush shot over Anstruthers' face. There was one more thing to say--whether it was idiotic to say it or not. Things can always be denied afterwards, should denial appear necessary--and for the moment his special devil possessed him. “I do not like her!” And his mouth twisted. “Do I not? I am not an old woman. I am a man--like others. I chance to like her--too much.” There was a short silence. Mount Dunstan broke it. “Then,” he remarked, “you had better emigrate to some country with a climate which suits you. I should say that England--for the present--does not.” “I shall stay where I am,” answered Anstruthers, with a slight hoarseness of voice, which made it necessary for him to clear his throat. “I shall stay where she is. I will have that satisfaction, at least. She does not mind. I am only a racketty, middle-aged brother-in-law, and she can take care of herself. As I told you, she has the spirit of the huntress.” “Look here,” said Mount Dunstan, quite without haste, and with an iron civility. “I am going to take the liberty of suggesting something. If this thing is true, it would be as well not to talk about it.”