"Nap is evidently no favourite with you," she said.
He raised his brows till they nearly met his hair. "Nap, my dear lady," he drily observed, "is doubtless all right in his own sphere. It isn't mine, and it isn't yours. I came over to this country at his request and in his company, and a queerer devil it has never been my lot to encounter. But what can you expect? I've never yet seen him in a blanket and moccasins, but I imagine that he'd be considerably preferable that way. I guess he's just a fish out of water on this side of civilisation."
"What can you mean?" Anne said.
For the second time that afternoon she felt as if the ground beneath her had begun to tremble. She looked up at him with troubled eyes. Surely the whole world was rocking!
"I mean what I say, madam," he told her curtly. "It's a habit of mine. There is a powerful streak of red in Nap Errol's blood, or I am much mistaken."
"Ah!" Anne said, and that was all. In a flash she understood him. She felt as if he had performed some ruthless operation upon her, and she was too exhausted to say more. Unconsciously her hand pressed her heart. It was beating strangely, spasmodically; sometimes it did not beat at all. For she knew beyond all doubting that what he said was true.
"I don't say the fellow is an out-and-out savage," Capper was saying. "P'r'aps he'd be more tolerable if he were. But the fatal streak is there. Never noticed it? I thought you women noticed everything. Oh, I can tell you he's made things hum on our side more times than I've troubled to count. Talk of the devil in New York and you very soon find the conversation drifting round to Nap Errol. Now and then he has a lapse into sheer savagery, and then there is no controlling him. It's just as the fit takes him. He's never to be trusted. It's an ineradicable taint."
She shivered at the words, but still she did not speak.
Capper went unconcernedly on. "I fancy Lucas once thought he was going to make a gentleman of him. A gentleman, ye gods! Teach a tiger to sit up and beg! He has a most amazing patience, but I guess even he realises by now that the beast is untamable. Mrs. Errol saw it long ago. There's a fine woman for you—A.1., gilt-edged, quality of the best. You know Mrs. Errol, you say?"
"Yes, I know her." Anne heard the words, but was not conscious of uttering them.