Finch growled: "Quote someone besides Piers for a change."
"But how can I? He's the only husband I've got."
"He's not the only brother I have, and I'm tired of hearing his words chanted as though he was the Almighty."
She leaned toward him, her face a white blur against the dark. "Anyone who is as self-centred as you are naturally doesn't want to hear about anyone else. Anyone who would devour a bar of chocolate with a starving young mother at his side. Anyone"
"Say 'anyone' again," bawled Finch, "and I'll jump out of the car!"
The altercation was cut short by a vehement jolt. The motor had started. Renny gave a grunt of satisfaction.
He slouched behind the wheel, staring ahead into the November night. The roads were almost deserted when they had passed beyond the suburbs. Even the streets of the villages through which they speeded were almost empty. The vast expanse of lake and sky to the left was a great blackness, except for the beam of the lighthouse and two dusky red lights denoting the presence of a schooner ploughing against a head wind.
His mind flew ahead to the stables at Jalna. Mike, a handsome gelding, had got his leg badly cut by a kick from a vicious new horse that morning. He felt much disturbed about Mike. The vet had said it might be a serious business. He was anxious to get home and find out what sort of day he had passed. . . . He thought of the new horse that had done the damage. One of Piers's purchases. He himself had not liked the look in the brute's eyes, but Piers cared nothing about disposition if a horse's body was right. Piers would make over the disposition to suit himself. That seemed to be his idea. Well, he'd better make this new nag's temper over and be sharp about it. . . . He scowled in a way that always moved his grandmother to exclaim ecstatically: "Eh, what a perfect Court the lad is! He can give a savage look when he's a mind to!"
