"Damn and blast him," he said.
They did not speak. They knew that Ninian's anger had some relation to Mrs. Graham's headache and the letter from Uncle Peter, and they felt that it was not their business to speak, even though Ninian had drawn them into the affair.
"I'm sorry," said Ninian, sitting down again. "I ought not to have broken out like that before you chaps, but I couldn't help it."
Henry coughed as if he were clearing his throat, but he did not speak, and Gilbert sat still and gazed at the toe of his shoe.
"He always upsets mother, damn him!" Ninian looked up at them. "My Uncle Peter married a girl in a confectioner's shop at Cambridge. He's that kind of ass! He never writes to mother except when he's in a mess, and he always expects her to get him out of it. I can't stand a man who does that sort of thing. She's an awful bitch, too ... his wife! We had them here once!... My God!"
Ninian lay back in his seat and remained silent for a while as if he were contemplating in his mind the picture of Uncle Peter and his wife on that awful visit to Boveyhayne. They waited for him to continue.
"I used to feel ashamed to go into the village," he said at last. "The way she talked to the fishermen—one minute snubbing them, and the next, talking to them as if she were a servant-girl. They didn't like it. Jim Rattenbury hated it, I know. She wasn't one of us and she wasn't one of them. A damned in-between, that's what she was. And Uncle Peter used to get drunk!... I'm awfully sorry, you chaps, I oughtn't to be boring you like this!"
"That's all right," said Gilbert.
"I was jolly glad when they went," Ninian went on. "Jolly glad! Poor mother had a hell of a time while they were here!"
"I suppose so," Henry murmured, hardly knowing what to say.