“His eye gleamed with such feverish malignancy as he said this, that I involuntarily dropped a quantity of stitches in the silk necktie I was knitting for him—a soothing neutral shade not calculated to call attention to the tinge of bile in his complexion—and exclaimed, ‘Good Heavens!’ He immediately begged my pardon and bade me ‘good-night,’ whispering that he had arranged to shoot over the lower sixty acres with Stubbins, the head keeper—purely as a filial duty, Pomphrey not feeling robust enough to undertake it this year....
“Whether it was my having breathed a hint of this to Jane—who is, as a rule, a _grave_ for chance confidence—or whether Miss Twissing had overheard, how can I say? But she and Stubbins were waiting for my boy on the following morning, Stubbins—who loathes sporting women—in a state of complacency that only a five-pound note could have brought about. Her beautiful Bond-street self-ejecting breechloader, her cap, tweeds, and gaiters were the _dernier cri_, and with the coolest self-possession she wiped my poor boy’s eye over and over again. Out of thirty brace of birds before luncheon only three and a half fell to his gun, and _those_ were of the red-legged French description, ‘bred for duffers to blaze at,’ according to Lord Pomphrey. Rustleton went up to town that night, charging Jane with all sorts of civil messages for Miss Twissing, and slept at his Club, which was being painted and disagreed with him excessively.”
“Even with every door and window open and a flat dish full of milk upon the washstand,” said Lady Pomphrey, taking the friend’s arm and emphasizing her utterances with the green sunshade, “white paint permeates my whole being in a way that is perfectly indescribable. My son inherits my receptiveness—perhaps my weakness-indeed, he came into the world at Cluckham-Pomphrey during an early visit of ours, subsequent to spring-cleaning, where, owing to an unhappy facility possessed by Lord Pomphrey of being easily persuaded by self-interested persons, the hall screen, grand staircase, and all the Jacobean paneling had been covered by the local decorator with a creamy-hued, turpentiny and glutinous mixture known as ‘Eggster’s Exquisite Enamel.’ It cost a fortune to get off again, and some of it still lingers in the crevices of the carving. My basket.... It is a little cumbrous, but I really couldn’t think of letting you.... Well then, dear friend, if you insist.... Now for the really remarkable ending of my boy’s story.