Maule had, of course, remained with Miss Palliser, and
Chiltern and Spooner had taken themselves to their respective duties.
Phineas might have avoided her, but in doing so he would have seemed
to avoid her. She accepted his presence apparently as a matter of
course, and betrayed by her words and manner no memory of past
scenes. It was not customary with them to draw the forest, which
indeed, as it now stood, was a forest only in name, and they trotted
off to a gorse a mile and a half distant. This they drew blank,--then
another gorse also blank,--and two or three little fringes of wood,
such as there are in every country, and through which huntsmen run
their hounds, conscious that no fox will lie there. At one o'clock
they had not found, and the hilarity of the really hunting men as
they ate their sandwiches and lit their cigars was on the decrease.
The ladies talked more than ever, Lady Gertrude's voice was heard
above them all, and Lord Chiltern trotted on close behind his hounds
in obdurate silence. When things were going bad with him no one in
the field dared to speak to him.
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