‘And this is duty made easy. Go, my dear fellow, if you have had enough of us,’ cried Lord Rex, lightly. ‘But go on one condition—that you do not take Mrs. Arbuthnot. Mrs. Arbuthnot is our chaperon-in-chief. We cannot spare her.’
‘Mrs. Arbuthnot has Miss Bartrand under her charge—have you not, Dinah? I am afraid you could scarcely——’
‘I should, under no circumstances, think of landing at Alderney,’ said Dinah, in a voice uncomfortably strange to Gaston’s ear. ‘I am not afraid of fog. I do not wish to see Mr. Maxwell Grimsby. Why should I leave the Princess?’
‘Where your presence is the life of the whole party,’ pleaded Lord Rex. ‘You must not let your husband persuade you into throwing us over, Mrs. Arbuthnot.’
Quietly, firmly, came Dinah’s answer:
‘You need not be afraid. There is no risk of my being persuaded, Lord Rex. I am a great deal too wise,’ she added, ‘to go away from people who care to have me.’
And no further word of explanation or of farewell was exchanged between Dinah and her husband. Into the irrevocable mistakes of life is it not singular how men and women constantly drift after this blind, automatic fashion?
Only at the last moment, when the Princess had slackened speed, when the boat that had been signalled for was fast approaching from Alderney harbour—only at this last moment, I say, Gaston addressed a remark to Geff which Dinah felt might be taken by her, if she chose.
‘I shall be back to-morrow, unless anything very unforeseen happens. If it does, I can telegraph for my portmanteau, and——’
Geoffrey whispered a word or two in his cousin’s ear. ‘Of course, of course. I have every intention of coming back. I merely said “if.” You will have a magnificent passage,’ added Gaston, shaking hands heartily with Lord Rex. ‘Duty takes me to old Max. Inclination would have kept me with my hosts on board the Princess.’