Alma murmured a very frigid reply, while Philip was obliged to turn away to conceal the fury which blazed forth from his visage, and further to quell an overmastering impulse which moved him to take the speaker by the scruff of his neck and drop him there and then overboard—in front of the paddle-wheels. The free and easy patronising drawl of this insufferable cad made his blood surge again.
“By the way, Miss Wyatt,” went on the pachydermatous pastor, “I have a great mind to ask you to arbitrate. I must say Mr Fordham is a pretty cool hand. What do you think? Here am I with this huge knapsack full of things to carry, and he positively declines to take his share. That is—I’ve hinted to him pretty plainly that he ought to.”
“Fordham isn’t a man who deals largely in hints,” said Philip, facing round upon the speaker with a fierceness that almost made the latter recoil. “If he were, he would doubtless hint that one beast of burden is sufficient for the party.”
Scott looked affronted. Then his countenance suddenly cleared. “Oh! we are going to take a horse with us then?” he said, gleefully.
“No—an ass,” returned Philip, quickly.
Even the inflated layer of the other’s self-esteem was not proof against this shaft. It collapsed with its owner, who retired with a scowl to pour his grievance into haply more sympathising ears. And by that time the steamer had crossed the broad and turgid belt where the snow-waters of the Rhone cleft in a sharply defined pathway the blue surface of the lake, and was slowing down to half-speed as she approached Bouveret pier.