And as I stood smiling before her, she said: "Pray you be seated, sir, if you so desire. There should be sufficient air for two in this half-charred furnace which you call New York. Tell me, Mr. Renault, are the winters here also extreme in cold?"
"Sometimes," I said. "Last winter the bay was frozen to Staten Island so that the artillery crossed on the ice from the city."
She turned her head, looking out over the water, which was now all a golden sparkle under the westering sun. Then her eyes dropped to the burned district—that waste of blackened ruins stretching south along Broadway to Beaver Street and west to Greenwich Street.
"Is that the work of rebels?" she asked, frowning.
"No, madam; it was an accident."
"Why do the New Yorkers not rebuild?"
"I think it is because General Washington interrupts local improvements," I said, laughing.
She looked around at me, pretty brows raised in quaint displeasure.
"Does the insolence of a rebel really amuse you, Mr. Renault?"
I was taken aback. Even among the British officers here in the city it had become the fashion to speak respectfully of the enemy, and above all of his Excellency.