balls at once and they all drop into pockets all over his person, on
his shoulders, on his heels, on the inner side of his sleeves; and he
stands perfectly still and does nothing. Well, it was like that. He
had rather a rough, hoarse voice.

And, there he was, standing by the table. I was looking at him,
with my back to the screen. And suddenly, I saw two distinct
expressions flicker across his immobile eyes. How the deuce did
they do it, those unflinching blue eyes with the direct gaze? For
the eyes themselves never moved, gazing over my shoulder
towards the screen. And the gaze was perfectly level and perfectly
direct and perfectly unchanging. I suppose that the lids really must
have rounded themselves a little and perhaps the lips moved a
little too, as if he should be saying: "There you are, my dear." At
any rate, the expression was that of pride, of satisfaction, of the
possessor. I saw him once afterwards, for a moment, gaze upon
the sunny fields of Branshaw and say: "All this is my land!"

And then again, the gaze was perhaps more direct, harder if
possible--hardy too. It was a measuring look; a challenging look.
Once when we were at Wiesbaden watching him play in a polo
match against the Bonner Hussaren I saw the same look come into
his eyes, balancing the possibilities, looking over the ground. The
German Captain, Count Baron Idigon von Lelöffel, was right up
by their goal posts, coming with the ball in an easy canter in that
tricky German fashion. The rest of the field were just anywhere. It
was only a scratch sort of affair. Ashburnham was quite close to
the rails not five yards from us and I heard him saying to himself:
"Might just be done!" And he did it. Goodness! he swung that
pony round with all its four legs spread out, like a cat dropping off