To begin chattering away to her acquaintances, as if no Fanqua existed in the world.
It was a piece of admirable play-acting; and was meant to be.

She had been conscious all the while that she was an object of attention--possibly of admiration--to a group of men; and she knew what was right to be done and said under the circumstances, and did it perfectly, even to the smallest change of voice.

She was doubtless quite sincere the whole time, and felt everything which her voice expressed: but she felt it, because it was proper to feel it; and deceived herself probably more than she deceived any one about her.
A curious phase of human nature is that same play-acting, effect- studying, temperament, which ends, if indulged in too much, in hopeless self-deception, and 'the hypocrisy which,' as Mr.Carlyle says, 'is honestly indignant that you should think it hypocritical.' It is common enough among Negresses, and among coloured people too: but is it so very uncommon among whites?
Is it not the bane of too many Irish?
of too many modern French?
of certain English, for that matter, whom I have known, who probably had no drop of French or Irish blood in their veins?
But it is all the more baneful the higher the organisation is; because, the more brilliant the intellect, the more noble the instincts, the more able its victim is to say--'See: I feel what I ought, I say what I ought, I do what I ought: and what more would you have?
Why do you Philistines persist in regarding me with distrust and ridicule?
What is this common honesty, and what is this "single eye," which you suspect me of not possessing ?' Very beautiful was that harbour of George Town, seen by day.

In the centre an entrance some two hundred yards across: on the right, a cliff of volcanic sand, interspersed with large boulders hurled from some volcano now silent, where black women, with baskets on their heads, were filling a barge with gravel.

On the left, rocks of hard lava, surmounted by a well-lined old fort, strong enough in the days of 32-pounders.