Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/81

Rh when he had cooled down a little, he would like to talk over the affair. But he was not in. Miss Maria said that he had gone out as soon as he had finished his dinner, which he hurried through in a way which would certainly injure his digestion if he kept up the practice; and dinner was late, too, for they waited for him; and the archery meeting lasted a long time today; and it really was not right for him to stay out after the dew began to fall with only ordinary shoes on, for what's the good of knowing how to shoot a bow and arrow, if you're laid up in your bed with rheumatism or disease of the lungs! Good old lady! She would have kept Pepton in a green baize bag, had such a thing been possible.

The next morning, full two hours before church-time, Pepton called on me. His face was still beaming. I could not help smiling.

"Your happiness lasts well," I said.

"Lasts!" he exclaimed. "Why shouldn't it last!"

"There's no reason why it should not—at least for a week," I said. "And even longer, if you repeat your success."

I did not feel so much like congratulating Pepton as I had on the previous evening. I thought he was making too much of his badge-winning.

"Look here!" said Pepton, seating himself, and drawing his chair close to me, "you are shooting wild—very wild indeed. You don't even see the target. Let me tell you something. Last evening I went to see Miss Rosa. She was delighted at my success. I had not expected this. I thought she would be pleased,