'That dog Hagthorpe. I would to God I had left him rotting in Barbados.'
'Instead of bringing him to rot here. Yes? What did he say to you?'
'Say? You don't conceive he had the effrontery to speak to me?'
He smiled a little sourly. In these days of disillusion he was able to perceive that most of the trouble came from her being too consciously a lady without proper preparation for the role.
'But if he insulted you?'
'It was in the cursed impudent way he looked at me, with a half–smile on his insolent face.'
'A half–smile?' The bushy brows went up. 'It may have been no more than a greeting.'
'You would say that. You would take sides even with your slaves against your wife. Happen what may, I am never in the right. Oh no. Never. A greeting?' she sniffed. 'This was no greeting. And if it was, is a low slave to greet me with smiles?'
'A half–smile, I think you said. And as for low, he may be a slave — poor devil! — but he was born a gentleman.'
'Fine gentleman to be sure! A damned rebel who should have been hanged.'