Michael laughed a little bitterly, as he answered:
"All men are brutes when the moment favors them, and when a woman is sufficiently attractive. We will admit that the owner of Arranstoun was a brute."
"He was a man who, I understand, lived only for himself and for his personal gratification," Mrs. Howard told him.
"Poor devil! He perhaps had not had much chance. You should be charitable!"
Sabine shrugged her shoulders in that engaging way she had. She had hardly looked up again at Michael since the beginning, the exigencies of the dinner-table being excuse enough for not turning her head; but his eyes often devoured her fascinating, irregular profile to try and discover her real meaning, but without success.
"He was probably one of those people who are more or less like animals, and just live because they are alive," Sabine went on. "Who are educated because they happen to have been born in the upper classes—Who drink and eat and sport and game because it gives their senses pleasure so to do—but who see no further good in things."
"A low wretch!"
"Yes—more or less."
Michael's eyes were flashing now—and she did peep at him, when he said:
"But if the original of the ghost had stayed with him, she might have been able to change this base view of life—she could have elevated him."