Success #989789

Michael Annarly was talking to Lady Sibyl Carson. He had been dining with the Carsons, and he was staying on after the other guests, deep in talk with his hostess. He was the last to move, excepting, of course, those who were staying in the house. These were all men; Carson did not encourage the idea of women visitors in case they should want to go out with the guns, and Lady Sibyl had few friends of her own sex for whom she cared enough to insist on inviting. The men lounged by the fire in the room, part hall, part billiard-room, to which the company had retired when the more formal guests departed. Lady Sibyl and Annarly were some distance from the others, she in a deep-seated chair which toned in colour with the golden russet of her dress and hair and eyes. Annarly sat beside her in earnest talk, as he had sat ever since their coming into the hall; since then neither had conceded even a pretence of recognising the existence of other people. When the one or two local guests, who had lingered on, came to take leave of their hostess, she for the moment waked to a recollection of their existence, made a few remarks in a charming manner, and then obviously went back in mind to where she was before. Annarly, who in spite of his thirty years was not really well versed in the ways of the world, certainly not of this world, did not acquit himself even so well as that.