"It will be a positive rest to be in a country where the women do not cackle and shriek with laughter." He said it with that simple rudeness which at times professed to be almost impersonal, and which Rosalie had usually tried to believe was the outcome of a kind of cool British humour.

But this time she started a little at his words.
"I suppose we do make more noise than English people," she admitted a second or so later.

"I wonder why ?" And without waiting for an answer--somewhat as if she had not expected or quite wanted one--she leaned a little farther over the side to look back, waving her small, fluttering handkerchief to the many still in tumult on the wharf.

She was not perceptive or quick enough to take offence, to realise that the remark was significant and that Sir Nigel had already begun as he meant to go on.

It was far from being his intention to play the part of an American husband, who was plainly a creature in whom no authority vested itself.