'Must you always sneer, sir?' The shrewish note grew sharper. 'Do you transact the King's business at the breakfast–table?'
Always calm, even lethargic, of spirit, Sir James replied: 'Not always. No. But just as often as you must be peremptory.'
'I don't want for cause.' She swept forward and round the table so that she might directly face him. She stood there, very straight, her riding–whip in her gloved hands, held across her slim, vigorous young body. There was a petulance on the sensual lips, an aggressive forward thrust of the little pointed chin.
'I have been insulted,' she announced.
Grey–faced, Sir James considered her. 'To be sure,' he said at last.
'What do you mean — "To be sure"?'
'Doesn't it happen every time that you ride out?'
'And if it does, who shall wonder when yourself you set the example?'
He avoided the offered argument. Argument, at least, was something that he had learnt to refuse this winsome termagant of half his age whom he had married five years ago and who had since poisoned his life with the bad manners and ill–temper brought from her tradesman–father's home.
'Who was it today?' asked his weary voice.