16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
made no comment, any more than Stephen
took notice of Dutourd's English, remarkably
exact and idiomatic, though occasionally
marked by the nasal twang of the northern
colonies, in which he had spent some early
years.
He was sitting there in the middle of the table,
upright, buoyant, wearing a light-blue
coat and his own hair, cropped in the Brutus
fashion, talking away right and left, suiting
himself to his company and apparently enjoying
his dinner: yet he had lost everything, and
that everything was sailing along under the lee
of the Surprise, commanded by those who had
taken him prisoner. Insensibility? Stoicism?
Magnanimity? Stephen could not tell: but it
was certainly not mere levity, for what Stephen
did know was that Dutourd was a highly intelligent
man with an enquiring not to say an inquisitive
mind. He was now engaged in ex-