What was the reason of that animosity?
Clarice lowered her eyelashes demurely and smiled.
'I fancied he was your friend,' she said with inquiring innocence.
'I believe I remarked that he was changed.' Mallinson looked up at a corner of the ceiling as he spoke, and the exasperation was more than ever pronounced in his voice.
'Mr.Drake,' she went on, and she laid the slightest possible emphasis on the prefix, 'Mr.Drake has travelled among the natives a good deal, I think you told me ?' 'Yes.' 'It's funny that that should make a man bourgeois.' Mallinson became flippant.
'I am not so sure,' he said.

'The natives, I should think, are essentially bourgeois.

They love beads, and that's typical of the class.
Evil communications, you know,' and he laughed, but awkwardly and without merriment.
'Really ?' asked Clarice, looking straight at him with grave eyes.

She seemed to be seriously deliberating the truth of his remark.

Mallinson's laughter stopped short.