"Well, I assure you that I do not feel contemptuous. On the contrary, I am filled with admiration. Thank Heaven, I am a man of the world. Whenever I meet heiresses I always have the deepest admiration." As he said this he wore a brave hang-dog expression. The girl surveyed him coldly from his chin to his eyebrows. "You have a handsome audacity, too." He lay back in the long grass and contemplated the clouds. "You should have been a Chinese soldier of fortune," she said. He threw another little clod at Stanley and struck him on the head. "You are the most scientifically unbearable person in the world," she said. Stanley came back to see his master and to assure himself that the clump on the head was not intended as a sign of serious displeasure. Hawker took the dog's long ears and tried to tie them into a knot. "And I don't see why you so delight in making people detest you," she continued. Having failed to make a knot of the dog's ears, Hawker leaned back and surveyed his failure admiringly. "Well, I don't," he said. "You do." "No, I don't." "Yes, you do. You just say the most terrible things as if you positively enjoyed saying them." "Well, what did I say, now? What did I say?" "Why, you said that you always had the most extraordinary admiration for heiresses whenever you met them." "Well, what's wrong with that sentiment?" he said. "You can't find fault with that!" "It is utterly detestable." "Not at all," he answered sullenly. "I consider it a tribute--a graceful tribute." Miss Fanhall arose and went forward to the edge of the cliff. She became absorbed in the falls. Far below her a bough of a hemlock drooped to the water, and each swirling, mad wave caught it and made it nod--nod--nod. Her back was half turned toward Hawker. After a time Stanley, the dog, discovered some ants scurrying in the moss, and he at once began to watch them and wag his tail. "Isn't it curious," observed Hawker, "how an animal as large as a dog will sometimes be so entertained by the very smallest things?" Stanley pawed gently at the moss, and then thrust his head forward to see what the ants did under the circumstances. "In the hunting season," continued Hawker, having waited a moment, "this dog knows nothing on earth but his master and the partridges. He is lost to all other sound and movement. He moves through the woods like a steel machine. And when he scents the bird--ah, it is beautiful! Shouldn't you like to see him then?" Some of the ants had perhaps made war-like motions, and Stanley was pretending that this was a reason for excitement. He reared aback, and made grumbling noises in his throat. After another pause Hawker went on: "And now see the precious old fool! He is deeply interested in the movements of the little ants, and as childish and ridiculous over them as if they were highly important.--There, you old blockhead, let them alone!"