It was an insulting laugh, and he knew it.

But the contrast between the grandiloquent words and the ridiculous figure which uttered them was too much for him.

Besides, though the most courteous of men, he deliberately wished to be insulting.

He couldn't help it.

There rose up in him, suddenly, a wild and unreasoning anger that mere paternity could place anyone (and especially a young girl with cool, grey eyes) in the power of such a caricature of manhood.
"Really ?" said Spence.