At tea, which they both took with lemon, Soames spoke of the Transvaal.
“There’ll be war,” he said.
Madame Lamotte lamented.
“Ces pauvres gens bergers!” Could they not be left to themselves?
Soames smiled—the question seemed to him absurd.
Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British could not abandon their legitimate commercial interests.
“Ah! that!” But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a little hypocrite. They were talking of justice and the Uitlanders, not of business. Monsieur was the first who had spoken to her of that.
“The Boers are only half-civilised,” remarked Soames; “they stand in the way of progress. It will never do to let our suzerainty go.”
“What does that mean to say? Suzerainty!”
“What a strange word!” Soames became eloquent, roused by these threats to the principle of possession, and stimulated by Annette’s eyes fixed on him. He was delighted when presently she said: