"Bah!" cried Bufton, "I would have provided well for the girl--have done all except marry her. That was impossible. I needed an heiress, and I got that other. That thing; that dancing, singing thing; fit only to be the wife of her mistress's coachman, or some porter."
"Wherefore you desire vengeance?"
"Vengeance! Oh, my God! if I could but have that on her and him--this insolent, supercilious sailor. If I could. If I could."
"Yet you were always an admirer of superciliousness yourself."
"Bah!" he cried again, "amongst wits and men of fashion, yes! There it is suitable. But this fellow, this broken-down, impoverished man of birth, who can do no better than go a-sailing. And to be supercilious to me!"
"Vengeance, eh?" said Lewis Granger, meditating--pretending to meditate. "Vengeance."
"Ay, vengeance on both; but I know not how to obtain it."
"Do you know," said Granger quietly--softly, indeed--"that both are in this neighbourhood? Not two miles away from where we now sit."
"What!" cried Bufton, full of astonishment. "What! Both here; two miles away! It is impossible."
"Nevertheless it is true. Sir Geoffrey is in command of a French prize called the Mignonne, which lies off Bugsby's Hole. Anne--Bufton," with his eyes full on the man before him, "is in attendance on her mistress, Lady Barry."