“I... I can't think why you should speak to me like this,” she said, with less than her earlier assurance.
“Ah, now, can't ye, indeed?” he cried. “Sure, then, I'll be telling ye.”
“Oh, please.” There was real alarm in her voice. “I realize fully what you did, and I realize that partly, at least, you may have been urged by consideration for myself. Believe me, I am very grateful. I shall always be grateful.”
“But if it's also your intention always to think of me as a thief and a pirate, faith, ye may keep your gratitude for all the good it's like to do me.”
A livelier colour crept into her cheeks. There was a perceptible heave of the slight breast that faintly swelled the flimsy bodice of white silk. But if she resented his tone and his words, she stifled her resentment. She realized that perhaps she had, herself, provoked his anger. She honestly desired to make amends.
“You are mistaken,” she began. “It isn't that.”
But they were fated to misunderstand each other.
Jealousy, that troubler of reason, had been over-busy with his wits as it had with hers.
“What is it, then?” quoth he, and added the question: “Lord Julian?”
She started, and stared at him blankly indignant now.