8Q THE SILVER FOX 



"It's awfully good of you to come, 

 Slaney," he said, with an effort at his 

 wonted geniality. '*Such short notice too. 

 I didn't know that I was going to this 

 shoot till I got in from hunting the day 

 before yesterday." 



He could remember, as he spoke, the 

 mountain stream by which, when riding 

 home, he had made up his mind to go, 

 while the steady patter of the hounds' paws 

 sounded behind him on the wet road, and 

 the honest hound faces that he was beginning 

 to hate looked up at him from time to time. 



Slaney and he found the drawing-room 

 empty of all but a smell of cigarettes, and 

 pursuing a fresh trail of it to the smoking- 

 room, found Lady Susan sitting with a 

 cigarette in her shapely mouth, and in front 

 of her a mandoline, from which she was 

 plucking a shrill and agueish chatter of 

 melody, representing a waltz. A grey 

 poodle lay at her feet, with his moustached 

 muzzle buried in the fur rug, and his eyes 

 rolling purgatorially upward in the for- 



