“Imperfectly civilized.”

“Imperfectly disciplined,” corrected Mr. Travers after a moment of dreary meditation.

She let her arms fall and turned her head.

“No, don’t say that,” she protested with strange earnestness.  “I am the most severely disciplined person in the world.  I am tempted to say that my discipline has stopped at nothing short of killing myself.  I suppose you can hardly understand what I mean.”

Mr. Travers made a slight grimace at the floor.

“I shall not try,” he said.  “It sounds like something that a barbarian, hating the delicate complexities and the restraints of a nobler life, might have said.  From you it strikes me as wilful bad taste. . . .  I have often wondered at your tastes.  You have always liked extreme opinions, exotic costumes, lawless characters, romantic personalities—­like d’Alcacer . . .”

“Poor Mr. d’Alcacer,” murmured Mrs. Travers.

“A man without any ideas of duty or usefulness,” said Mr. Travers, acidly.  “What are you pitying him for?”

“Why!  For finding himself in this position out of mere good-nature.  He had nothing to expect from joining our voyage, no advantage for his political ambitions or anything of the kind.  I suppose you asked him on board to break our tete-a-tete which must have grown wearisome to you.”

“I am never bored,” declared Mr. Travers.  “D’Alcacer seemed glad to come.  And, being a Spaniard, the horrible waste of time cannot matter to him in the least.”

“Waste of time!” repeated Mrs. Travers, indignantly.

“He may yet have to pay for his good nature with his life.”

Mr. Travers could not conceal a movement of anger.

“Ah!  I forgot those assumptions,” he said between his clenched teeth.  “He is a mere Spaniard.  He takes this farcical conspiracy with perfect nonchalance.  Decayed races have their own philosophy.”

“He takes it with a dignity of his own.”

“I don’t know what you call his dignity.  I should call it lack of self-respect.”

“Why?  Because he is quiet and courteous, and reserves his judgment.  And allow me to tell you, Martin, that you are not taking our troubles very well.”

“You can’t expect from me all those foreign affectations.  I am not in the habit of compromising with my feelings.”

Mrs. Travers turned completely round and faced her husband.  “You sulk,” she said. . . .  Mr. Travers jerked his head back a little as if to let the word go past.—­“I am outraged,” he declared.  Mrs. Travers recognized there something like real suffering.—­“I assure you,” she said, seriously (for she was accessible to pity), “I assure you that this strange Lingard has no idea of your importance.  He doesn’t know anything of your social and political position and still less of your great ambitions.”  Mr. Travers listened with some attention.—­“Couldn’t you have enlightened him?” he asked.—­“It