He refrained from roaringnoat her as he had earlier, but he was doing it in his head. “Please stop, Clem. If anyone ought to apologize, it’s me, but can we just talk about this? Talk openly and without guile or fear of judgment? Can you tell me what happened back there? Help me understand?”
Though he did understand, didn’t he? Hadn’t his understanding been the source of his frustration over how Sir Albertdidn’tunderstand?
“I’m not sure I understand it myself.” She sighed and stared up into the leafy canopy, and he smiled to himself. Sir Albert didn’t understand her; she didn’t understand herself. For Archie to claim thathedid was the height of presumption, yet he continued to feel as if a perfect grasp of the situation had been conferred on him, albeit too late to have spared Clem significant upset. “I know only that the thought of an animal suffering needlessly genuinely pains me. I am not affecting a stance to cross you.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
“Perhaps it is that I reserve my true affection, my true devotion, for the animal kingdom. I hear you saying that what you love about hunting is the chase, the joy of being outdoors, the taking of fresh air and sunshine. I don’t understand why you can’t do all those things without the killing.”
“The killing is the point.”
“Do youhearyourself?”
He . . . did. “That was poorly phrased.” He sighed, considering how to convey to her thefeelingof hunting. “It’s not the killing so much as the thrill of the hunt, the slow honing of attention that is required until all that exists is oneself and one’s prey and the air humming all around.”
He thought back to a recent after-dinner discussion, in which the boys made him tell the story of how the Earls Trip hunting ban came to be. He had at the time cheerfully accepted the barring of his favorite pastime because he had thought how much he would rather be the kind of person Effie sought out to discuss his dreams than be a hunter.
He felt the same way here. He feltmoreof the same way here. He would give up hunting forever rather than cause Clem any distress.
“I understand,” Clementine said. “Well, Idon’t, but I can see how what you are saying is true for you. Regardless, I’m afraid I shan’t be able to continue with our agreement.”
“Oh, that goes without saying.”
“It does?”
“Of course!” Did she think he was going to march her down this tree, thrust a rifle in her hands, and compel her to shoot?
The affront must have come through in his tone. She said, quietly, “I am not accustomed to men listening to me when I say what I want, much less allowing me to have it.”
Ah, the knowledge that he had been, even briefly, one of those men made him ashamed. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen, Clem.”
“You did, though. Youare.”
“Now, perhaps,” he scoffed. “Took me a while. Though we have discussed what a poor student I was. That’s what you get for having an idiot for a friend.”
“No, that’s what I get for having a mortal man as a friend. It is rather amazing, isn’t it, how we can rub along with other people and somehow not hear them? Not see them?”
“Mmm.”
“I’m not talking about you,” she rushed to say. “In fact, you’re more highly skilled in this regard than anyone I know.”
“Were you talking about you and Olive?”
“I was indeed.”
“Have you spoken to Olive about what we overheard?”
“I have not. She was still abed when we left this morning, though in truth that is somewhat of an excuse. I’m nervous about the prospect of bringing it up. How does one broach a conversation like that?”
“Yes, I see the dilemma.”
“That wasn’t a rhetorical question. I’m actually asking you. You are uniquely good at this sort of thing, at having conversations that are . . . sticky.”
He grinned like a boy at her praise, but he didn’t have much of an answer. “I suppose you can’t take her up a tree and simply ask her who her long-lost love is?”
“How could my sister have had such a love—and have lost it—right under my nose?”
He was fairly certain thatwasa rhetorical question, so he didn’t answer. “I was jesting, but only somewhat. If you think I’m uniquely good at having ‘sticky’ conversations, it may only be because I blunder ahead and just . . . have them.”
