"--"He is indifferent to everything," said d'Alcacer.--"It may
be a mask."--"Have you some evidence, Mrs. Travers?"
"No," said Mrs. Travers without hesitation. "I have my instinct."
D'Alcacer remained silent for a while as though he were pursuing another
train of thought altogether, then in a gentle, almost playful tone: "If
I were a woman," he said, turning to Mrs. Travers, "I would always trust
my intuition."--"If you were a woman, Mr. d'Alcacer, I would not be
speaking to you in this way because then I would be suspect to you."
The thought that before long perhaps he would be neither man nor woman
but a lump of cold clay, crossed d'Alcacer's mind, which was living,
alert, and unsubdued by the danger. He had welcomed the arrival of Mrs.
Travers simply because he had been very lonely in that stockade, Mr.
Travers having fallen into a phase of sulks complicated with shivering
fits. Of Lingard d'Alcacer had seen almost nothing since they had
landed, for the Man of Fate was extremely busy negotiating in the
recesses of Belarab's main hut; and the thought that his life was being
a matter of arduous bargaining was not agreeable to Mr. d'Alcacer. The
Chief's dependents and the armed men garrisoning the stockade paid very
little attention to him apparently, and this gave him the feeling of his
captivity being very perfect and hopeless.
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