He is one and a half." Guy Oscard seemed to have inherited the mind inquisitive from his learned father.

He asked another question later on.
"Who is that woman ?" he said during dinner, with a little nod towards the doorway, through which the object of his curiosity had passed with some plates.
"That is the mother of the stout Nestorius," answered Jack--"Durnovo's housekeeper." He spoke quietly, looking straight in front of him; and Joseph, who was drawing a cork at the back of the room, was watching his face.
There was a little pause, during which Durnovo drank slowly.

Then Guy Oscard spoke again.
"If she cooked the dinner," he said, "she knows her business." "Yes," answered Durnovo, "she is a good cook--if she is nothing else." It did not sound as if further inquiries would be welcome, and so the subject was dropped with a silent tribute to the culinary powers of Durnovo's housekeeper at the Msala Station.
The woman had only appeared for a moment, bringing in some dishes for Joseph--a tall, stately woman, with great dark eyes, in which the patience of motherhood had succeeded to the soft fire of West Indian love and youth.

She had the graceful, slow carriage of the Creole, although her skin was darker than that of those dangerous sirens.

That Spanish blood ran in her veins could be seen by the intelligence of her eyes; for there is an intelligence in Spanish eyes which stand apart.
In the men it seems to refer to the past or the future, for their incorrigible leisureliness prevents the present rendering of a full justice to their powers.