All his usual self-possession seemed to have been shaken out of him by the thought of the catastrophe he might have caused. Young, good-looking and popular, he was accustomed to take the pleasure shown in his society and the admiring approval of his associates, which had always contributed so much to his comfortable feeling of satisfaction with himself, and which had invariably strengthened his reluctance to harbour unpleasant doubts as to his own perfections, as a matter of course; and the heartiness with which he now cursed himself for a careless and dangerous fool testified to the fright he had had.
Even when David, relenting a little, though still reluctant to show it, grunted surlily, "None of you cavalry soldiers are safe with a gun." Mark did not, as he would generally have done, deny the accusation resentfully, but displayed an astonishing meekness, which proved how clearly he saw himself to be in the wrong. Juliet, who had sometimes thought him rather selfish--a fault he shared with many others of his kind, and one perhaps almost unavoidable in attractive only sons--was touched by his unusual humility, and treated the matter lightly, doing all she could to cheer him up and restore to him his good opinion of himself.
But Mark, while he smiled back gratefully in reply, would not allow her to persuade him that he was less to blame than he asserted, and he was still lamenting his carelessness when they came up with the rest of the party, who were already stationed in the butts.
Miss Tarver was beside Lord Ashiel, and Mark stopped a minute to relate how nearly he had been the cause of an accident, although both David and Juliet, by mutual consent, guessed what he was going to do, and tried to dissuade him.
"No need to say anything about it," David mumbled in his ear.
"No, no, don't, please," Juliet murmured in the other.
Yet he would not be tempted, and they walked on together in silence, leaving him to tell the story.
"I as near as makes no difference peppered David and Miss Byrne just now," they heard him begin, and then Lord Ashiel's voice broke in in an angry tone as they passed out of earshot.
David's loader reported afterwards that that young gentleman and Miss Byrne, when she waited with him in the butt, seemed to find very little to talk about. And it was a long wait before any birds came up, on that beat.