Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/255

 above her. "Just think: We haven't been away on a real trip since our honeymoon."

Slowly George's mind came round to the contemplation of the idea—this absurd and utterly impossible idea that he at this time could absent himself from the city of Detroit for a matter of three weeks or more.

"Could we leave Junior?" he fended, grasping at any straw and noticing, as he sought to raise this feeble obstacle, that Sir Brian lifted an interested eye toward the two of them.

Fay dismissed Junior with a pursing of her lips to express absurdity and an explosive little: "Why, of course!" after which she was immediately off on the main track again with: "I've always wanted to shoot big game. Sir Brian says we women would enjoy the trip immensely even though we never got a shot, while you men would be certain to kill. Then just think, too, what good fellows the Hicksons and the Traceys are when it comes to potlucking—anything like that! It would be such a lark!"

She was all stampeding eagerness and into each sentence got a plea that was almost pathetic in its earnestness. But George had by this time sensed that, besides Sir Brian, the Traceys and the Hicksons were frankly and interestedly listening, and it irritated him to have these people infer that his wife must plead, for any-