"Why haven't you?"
"Because having become a grand lady, her ladyship didn't choose to see me."
Jack Battle turned on his heel and swore a seaman's oath. "That—that's a lie," said he.
"Very well—it's a lie, but this is what happened," and I told him of the scene in the theatre. Jack pulled a puzzled face, looking askance as he listened.
"Why didn't you go round to her box, the way M. Radisson did to the king's?"
"You forget I am only a trader!"
"Pah," says Jack, "that is nothing!"
"You forget that Lieutenant Blood might have objected to my visit," and I told him of Blood.
"But how was Mistress Hortense to know that?"
Wounded pride hugs its misery, and I answered nothing.