CHAPTER III.
THE BLISSFUL HOUR It was the hour between tea and dinner, when the spirit of the country house was resting, conscious of its virtue, half asleep.
Having bathed and changed, George Pendyce took his betting-book into the smoking-room.

In a nook devoted to literature, protected from draught and intrusion by a high leather screen, he sat down in an armchair and fell into a doze.
With legs crossed, his chin resting on one hand, his comely figure relaxed, he exhaled a fragrance of soap, as though in this perfect peace his soul were giving off its natural odour.

His spirit, on the borderland of dreams, trembled with those faint stirrings of chivalry and aspiration, the outcome of physical well-being after a long day in the open air, the outcome of security from all that is unpleasant and fraught with danger.

He was awakened by voices.
"George is not a bad shot!" "Gave a shocking exhibition at the last stand; Mrs.Bellew was with him.
They were going over him like smoke; he couldn't touch a feather." It was Winlow's voice.

A silence, then Thomas Brandwhite's: "A mistake, the ladies coming out.