"The consul tells me that you had a narrow escape. Those infernal water-buffaloes! Bless my soul! I'm more afraid of a herd of them than a whole regiment of Chinese.... 'Pon my word, I am."
"So am I, the ugly brutes! And if the girl had got killed or injured there would have been the very deuce to pay. The consul and her father would have blamed me."
"Yes, that's the way with Beauchamp. He's an Englishman. But he's down on his own countrymen and his own class, and all for those damn boors of Canadians. He thinks more of MacKay and that upstart doctor than he does of a whole colony of English."
"Well, I shouldn't like to say that. Beauchamp has always been awfully decent with me. 'Pon my soul, he has! ... But he is vexed at you. He says that you ought to be deported."
"Only wish he would deport me! Anyway, he can't till the next boat. And on it he's going to have to deport his wife and Mrs. Thomson and Miss MacAllister. That will hurt him worst of all. Don't you fret. There'll be no deporting by that boat, unless I deport myself."
"You are pressing your case with Miss MacAllister deuced hard.... How is it looking? You should have some results by this time. 'Pon my honour, you should!"
Carteret drained his glass and filled it again.
"The mother's with me. She knows that the heir has only one lung."
"Says nothing one way or the other. Don't think that he is quite satisfied with my religious principles."
"Not if he knew all about them. But, thank the Lord, he doesn't!"
Carteret laughed disagreeably, cynically as he spoke.
De Vaux took his cigar out of his mouth, blew a cloud of smoke into the air, and tipped his long glass so high that one might fancy that he feared lest even the moisture adhering to its sides should escape him. He set it down and wiped his lips with a sigh of satisfaction. Then he said:
"Signs enough sometimes that she wished I was in Jericho, or at the North Pole, or some other equally remote and cheerful place."
"Just at present she's taken with that Canadian peasant's muscles. Like the rest of the women, she is more attracted by the body of a man than by his birth or brains."
He laughed again, and his laugh was unpleasant to hear.
De Vaux gulped down another drink and answered with a little bit of angry stutter: