She said in the Indian tongue: “What do you look at me for? I’ve told you before that you’re risking both our necks by taking her. The world is full of skinny little pale-faced women, but you’ve only got one neck. Better leave her with the man.”
Imbrie shook his head slowly.
The woman shrugged. “Well, if you got to have her, fix it to suit yourself.” She ostentatiously went on with the packing.
Imbrie looked sidewise at Clare with a kind of hungry pain in his sullen eyes. “I won’t leave her,” he muttered. “I’ll take them both.”
The woman flung up her hands in a passionate gesture. “Foolishness!” she cried.
A new idea seemed to occur to Imbrie; he said in English: “I’ll take the redbreast for my servant. Upstream work is no cinch. I’ll make him track us. It’ll be a novelty to have a redbreast for a servant.”
Clare glanced anxiously at Stonor as if expecting an outbreak.
Imbrie asked with intolerable insolence: “Will you be my servant, Redbreast?”
Clare’s hands clenched, and she scowled at Imbrie like a little fire-eater.
Stonor answered calmly: “If I have to be.”