Mr. Pinchook smiled and coughed behind his gloved hand with an air of long-suffering patience.
“Do you mean to say that she is not charming? She looks delightful. Think of that face and two millions of money! What a prize she will be! I wonder who the lucky man will be?”
Mr. Pinchook took up his hat.
“A great responsibility has been laid upon you, Lady Wyndover,” he said. “I now have the pleasure to place your ward in your hands. As you say, she—er—is extremely beautiful, and is possessed of an immense fortune. This you know already; but I shall be extremely surprised if you do not shortly discover that she is possessed of something else.”
“What else?” demanded Lady Wyndover, smiling, and with her delicately penciled brows arched interrogatively.
“Of a temper, Lady Wyndover,” said Mr. Pinchook, with the same long-suffering smile. “I do not know whether most young girls are as trying as Miss Chetwynde; if so, I thank Heaven that I am still a bachelor.”
“Good gracious! What has she done?”
“What has she done!” repeated Mr. Pinchook. “The question would be easier to answer if it were ‘What has she not done?’ Nothing very dreadful, from your point of view, I dare say, Lady Wyndover, but enough to drive a man of my age—er—and quiet habits into a lunatic asylum. When I tell you that she had got all the men in the ship—including the captain—to fall in love with her, and that I lived in hourly dread of bloodshed; that she insists upon having her own way on every occasion, and that she has been spoiled by a whole camp full of the most fearful rowdies I have ever dreamed of, you will form some idea of what I have suffered during the last few weeks, and understand why I resign my charge with a profound sense of relief.”
“Good gracious!” Lady Wyndover exclaimed again. “You frighten me! Do you mean to say that the girl is perfectly odious?”
Mr. Pinchook smiled grimly.