Page 19 (1/1)
However it may have been, she had suet his answer, the best whip, the erly discussed, and one of the wealthiest un with idle eyes the shadows lengthening across the sun-shot moorland, the sound of Siward's even voice aroused her frouely He spoke again; all the agreeable, gentle, hurowing tension of her own thoughts, absolving her from the duty of immediate decision
"I feel curiously lazy," she said; "perhaps fro drive" She seated herself on the turf "Talk to me, Mr Siward--in that lazy way of yours"
What he had to say proved inconsequent enough, an irrelevant suggestion concerning the training of field-dogs for close covert work and the reasons for not breaking such dogs on quail Then the question of cross-breeding caave his opinion on the qualities of "droppers" To which she replied, sleepily; and the conversation veered again toward the mystery of heredity, and the hopelessness of escape fro nose in the wind, having scented afar the traces of the forbidden rabbit
"His ancestors turned 'round and 'round to flatten the long reeds and grasses in their lairs before lying down," observed Siward "He does it, too, where there is nothing to flatten out Did you ever notice how oes the carefully schooled Saga rabbits! Why? Because his wild ancestors chased rabbits … Heredity? It's a steady, unseen, pulling, dragging force Like lightning, too, it shatters, sometimes, where there is resistance"
"Do you mean, Mr Siward, that heredity is an excuse forof evil say it is no excuse"
"It is no excuse"
"You speak with authority," he said
"Withto say it
She stood up impulsively, her fresh face turned to the distant house, her rounded young figure poised in relief against the sky
"Inherited or not, idleness, procrastination, are est the remedy, Mr Siward?"
"But they are only the thieves of Tiued assassins," she repeated pensively
Her gown had caught on the cliff briers; he knelt to release it, she looking down, noting an ugly tear in the fabric
"Payment fordown over his shoulder and watching his efforts to release her "Thank you, Mr Siward I think we ought to start, don't you?"