“Who the devil do you think you are, giving your orders in my room?” he asked roughly.
She pushed her underlip out a little in an aggressive way which tickled him. “I shan’t go till I’ve said what I’ve come it, say. I’m not afraid of you. You won’t make me cry.”
“Good lass!” he approved. “Damme, if you’d the sense to know a blood-horse from a half-bred hack I’d be proud of you, so I would! Take yourself off, Martha. God’s teeth, what are you standing there for like a fool? Get out!”
“And don’t stand listening at the door either!” said Vivian, with a forthrightness to match Penhallow’s own.
Martha gave a chuckle. “Aw, my dear, it’s a wonder, surely, Master Eugene chose you for his wife! You’ll eat us all up yet you’re that fierce,” she remarked, without rancour, and took herself off with her shuffling step, and shut the doors behind her.
The spaniel, which had greeted Vivian with her usual growl, now jumped down from the bed, lumbered over to the fire, and cast herself down before it, panting. The cat paused in its ablutions to regard her fixedly for a few moments, after which it resumed its toilet.
Penhallow flung one or two of the ledgers and papers which littered the bed on to the chenille-covered table beside him, and said: “Pour me out a drink. Have one yourself.”
“I don’t drink at this hour of the morning,” replied Vivian. “You oughtn’t to either, if you’ve really got dropsy.”
“Blast your impudence!” he said cheerfully. “What’s it to you, I should like to know? You’d be glad enough to see me underground, I’ll bet my last shilling!”
She shrugged. “It isn’t anything to do with me except that it’ll make your gout worse, and that means that we shall all suffer. What do you want?”