‘Put off, a God’s name!’ said he. ‘I’m winded.’
Raleigh, who had been sitting wrapped in his cloak and half asleep in the sternsheets, greeted him with some surprise:—
‘So soon! Was not the lady kind?’
‘Hardly.’
‘Not kind?’
‘It was the wrong lady—that was all.’
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DECOY
‘Are there two Joan Medleys in the world; and both——’
Brion stopped, and fell into such a deep and frowning reverie that the Captain would not venture to break into it for a while, but sat sipping his mulled wine, and glancing from time to time, with a curious amused expression, at the absorbed young figure. They were back at the Cock, and drinking a night-cap in company.
‘You do not,’ said Raleigh at last, seeing the other stir, ‘blame me for this fiasco?’