'If you knew!' Mrs. Marsett caught at her slippery tongue, and she carolled: 'If we all knew everything, we should be wiser, and what a naked lot of people we should be!'
They were crossing the passage of a cavalcade of gentlemen, at the end of the East Cliff. One among them, large and dominant, with a playful voice of brass, cried out:
'And how do you do, Mrs. Judith Marsett—ha? Beautiful morning?'
Mrs. Marsett's figure tightened; she rode stonily erect, looked level ahead. Her woman's red mouth was shut fast on a fighting underlip.
'He did not salute you,' Nesta remarked, to justify her for not having responded.
The lady breathed a low thunder: 'Coward!'
'He cannot have intended to insult you,' said Nesta.
'That man knows I will not notice him. He is a beast. He will learn that I carry a horsewhip.'
'Are you not taking a little incident too much to heart?'
The sigh of the heavily laden came from Mrs. Marsett.