Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 39).djvu/224

 "I don't know that I'm so set on shooting to-day, myself," said Martin, "Will you come round the links?"

"I am going out in the motor with Mr. Barstowe," said Elsa.

"The motor!" cried Mr. Barstowe, "Ah, Rossiter, that is the very poetry of motion. I never ride in a motor-car without those words of Shakespeare's ringing in my mind: 'I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.'"

"I shouldn't give way to that sort of thing if I were you," said Martin, " The police are pretty down on road-hogging in these parts."

"Mr. Barstowe was speaking figuratively," said Elsa, with disdain.

"Was he?" grunted Martin, whose sorrows were tending to make him every day more like a sulky schoolboy. "I'm afraid I haven't a poetic soul."

"I'm afraid you haven't," said Elsa.

There was a brief silence. A bird made itself heard in a neighbouring tree.

"'The moan of doves in immemorial elms,'" quoted Mr. Barstowe, softly.

"Only it happens to be a crow in a beech," said Martin, as the bird flew out.

Elsa's chin tilted itself in scorn. Martin turned on his heel and walked away.

"It's the wrong way, sir; it's the wrong way," said a voice. "I was hobserving you from a window, sir. It's Lady Angelica over again. Hopposition is useless, believe me, sir."

Martin faced round, flushed and wrathful. The butler went on, unmoved: "Miss Elsa is going for a ride in the car to-day, sir."

"I know that."

"Uncommonly tricky things, these motor-cars. I was saying so to Roberts, the chauffeur, just as soon as I 'eard Miss Elsa was going out with Mr. Barstowe. I said, 'Roberts, these cars is tricky; break down when you're twenty miles from hanywhere as soon as look at you. Roberts I said, slipping him a sovereign, 'ow awful it would be