Then, all of a sudden, without anybody’s advice, John was eliminated, too. It was not Aggie’s doing. In fact, he may be said to have eliminated himself. It happened in this way:

Mr. Hurst had been taking tea with Aggie one market-day. The others were all out, and he had the field to himself. She always remembered just how he looked when he did it. He was standing on the white mohair rag in the drawing-room, and was running his fingers through his hair for the third time. He had been telling her how he had first taken up sheep-farming in Australia, how he’d been a farm-hand before that in California, how he’d always set his mind on that one thing—sheep-farming—because he had been born and bred 14in the Cotswolds. Aggie’s dark-blue eyes were fixed on him, serious and intent. That flattered him, and the gods, for his undoing, dowered him with a disastro. . . Read More