Now she spoke as her forefathers, serfs born to the plough and bound to the soil, must have spoken to their lords and owners.

There was no ancient aristocratic blood in his own veins; he was simply a middle-class Italian gentleman who chanced to be counted with the higher class because he had been born very rich, had been brought up by a lady, and had been more or less well educated.

That was all.

It did not seem natural to him that she should call him "the master" in that tone.

He knew that she was not his equal, but somehow it was a little humiliating to have to own it, and he often wished that she were.