rong
enough word for it."

"I would have you to observe, Mr. Mackellar," cried he, with a sudden
imperious heat, in which I could not but admire him, "that I am
scrupulously civil; copy me in that, and we shall be the better
friends."

Throughout this dialogue I had been incommoded by the observation of
Secundra Dass. Not one of us, since the first word, had made a feint of
eating: our eyes were in each other's faces--you might say, in each
other's bosoms; and those of the Indian troubled me with a certain
changing brightness, as of comprehension. But I brushed the fancy aside,
telling myself once more he understood no English; only, from the
gravity of both voices, and the occasional scorn and anger in the
Master's, smelled out there was something of import in the wind.

* * * * *

For the matter of three weeks we continued to live together in the house
of Durrisdeer: the beginning of that most singular chapter of my
life--what I must call my intimacy with the Master. At first he was
somewhat changeable in his behaviour: now civil, now returning to his
old manner of flouting me to my face; and in both I met him half-way.
Thanks be to Providence, I had now no measure to keep with the man; and
I was never afraid of black brows, only of naked swords. So that I found
a certain entertainment in these bouts of incivility, and was not
always ill inspired in my rejoinders. At last (it was at supper) I had a
droll expression that entirely vanquished him. He laughed again and
again; and "Who would have guessed," he cried, "that this old wife had
any wit under his petticoats?"

"It is no wit, Mr. Bally," said I: "a dry Scots humour, and something of
the driest." And, indeed, I never had the least pretension to be thought
a wit.

From that hour he was never rude with me, but all passed between us in a
manner of pleasantry. One of our chief times of daffing[9] was when he
required a horse, another bottle, or some money. He would approach me
then after the manner of a schoolboy, and I would carry it on by way of
being his father: on both sides, with an infinity of mirth. I could not
but perceive that he thought more of me, which tickled that poor part of
mankind, the vanity. He dropped, besides (I must suppose unconsciously),
into a manner that was not only familiar, but even friendly; and this,
on the part of one who had so long detested me, I found the more
insidious. He went little abroad; s