And the hounds hunted him well to the end."

"Very well."

"It's odd how the scent will die away at a moment. You see they
couldn't carry on a field after we got out of the copse."

"Not a field."

"Considering all things I am glad we didn't kill him."

"Uncommon glad," said Lord Chiltern. Then they trotted on in silence
a little way, and Maule again dropped behind. "I'm blessed if he
knows that I spoke to him, roughly," said Chiltern. "He's deaf, I
think, when he chooses to be."

"You're not sorry, Lord Chiltern."

"Not in the least. Nothing will ever do any good. As for offending
him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it.
There's comfort in that, anyway. I wonder whether he'd talk to you if
I went away?"

"I hope that you won't try the experiment."

"I don't believe he would, or I'd go at once. I wonder whether you
really do care for him?"

"Not in the least."

"Or he for you."

"Quite indifferent, I should say; but I can't answer for him, Lord
Chiltern, quite as positively as I can for myself. You know, as
things go, people have to play at caring for each other."

"That's what we call flirting."

"Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love,
without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often
leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection."

"If Maule perseveres then you'll take him, and by-and-bye you'll come
to like him."

"In twenty years it might come to that, if we were always to live in
the same house; but as he leaves Harrington to-morrow, and we may
probably not meet each other for the next four years, I think the
chance is small."

Then Maule trotted up again, and after riding in silence with the
other two for half an hour, he pulled out his case and lit a fresh
cigar from the end of the old one, which he threw away. "Have a
baccy, Chiltern?" he said.

"No, thank you, I never smoke going home; my mind is too full. I've
all that family behind to think of, and I'm generally out of sorts
with the miseries of the day. I must say another word to Cox, or I
should have to go to the kennels on my way home." And so he dropped
behind.

Gerard Maule smoked half his cigar before he spoke a word, and Miss
Palliser was quite resolved that she would not open her mouth till he
had spoken. "I suppose he likes it?" he said at last.

"Who likes what, Mr. Maule?"

"