The house which the Claverings had taken for the winter was one that appealed to the quieter tastes of a man like Thornton. There was good hunting in the neighbourhood, and the stables were well filled with hunters, some of which Major Clavering had hired for the season. Over the estate attached to the house was excellent partridge shooting, and the covers were stocked with pheasants. The house itself was straggling--as a country house should be--roomy, and capable of accommodating comfortably the large party that was assembled for Christmas. It contained two billiard tables, a concert room staged for private theatricals, and a magnificent club-furnished smoking-room with a specially made baccarat table. Among the party the masculine element greatly preponderated, but the few women who were there had been carefully selected by the hostess to maintain a nice equilibrium. The major invited the men, and his wife, running over the list, had settled upon the women. She was doubly grateful that Clytie had thought fit to decline. On the evening of his arrival Thornton came down early after dressing and found Mrs. Clavering alone in the drawing-room, reclining luxuriously before the blaze under the great marble chimney-piece. “Clavering must have come into a pot of money in order to run this,” he said, parting his coat tails. “I have just been round the place. I had no idea it was such an extensive development.” “Yes. It's better than soldiering. Tom's looking out for a place of his own something after the style of this. The Dynevors wanted to go to Australia, and so they have let it to us cheap.” He nodded, not very interested, and twirled his moustache in silence. “You are not making a very good start by way of being amusing,” said Mrs. Clavering. “How is your wife?” “Oh, very well. But I don't see how that topic could amuse you. Matrimony isn't very funny.” “Glad to get out of the toils, I suppose.” “Passably. It leaves me free in the society of the only woman I have reasonably cared for,” he said, without changing his attitude. “Have you come down to play at that sort of thing again?” she asked, arching her eyebrows, with a little supercilious curl on her thin lips. “That's what you wanted me here for, I suppose.” “You came to shoot little birds on the invitation of my adoring husband.” “Perhaps the motives were mixed. You wouldn't believe me if I told you I had come to see you. That was my main inducement. I suppose I ought to have begun better and told you of my longing and despair. Let me make my declaration now, Clara.”