I think she said something very kind and good-natured, just as if it was only people who had really very great gifts that could condescend to make themselves subservient without humiliation.
"The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)"
Charles James Lever
To Julia it almost amounted to gloom, seated as she was in the dank shade of one of the funereal cedars, and she could have cried out in pure physical terror had her voice at that moment been subservient to her will.
"The Man from Jericho"
Edwin Carlile Litsey
She was, he noticed, more subservient than she had been on the former occasion.
"Fortitude"
Hugh Walpole