"My daughter, sir! Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you had the audacity to so much as hint of such a thing to my daughter, of all people?"
"So—so much depends on who your daughter is!" said Peter, completely losing his head.
"You dared to strike this cruel and unmanly blow at the self-respect of a sensitive girl—to poison her defenceless ears with your false, dastardly insinuations—and you can actually admit it?"
"I don't know whether I can admit it or not yet," he replied. "And—and you do put things so very strongly! It is like this: if you are referring to any conversation I may have had with Miss Tyrrell——"
"Miss Tyrrell? You have told her too!" exclaimed this terrible old matron, thereby demonstrating that, at least, she was not Lady Tyrrell.
"I—I should have said Miss Davenport," said Peter, correcting himself precipitately.
"Miss Davenport as well? Upon my word! And pray, sir, may I ask how many other ladies on board this ship are in possession of your amiable confidences?"
He raised his hands in utter despair.
"I can't say," he groaned. "I don't really know what I may have said, or whom I may have said it to! I—I seem to have done so much in my spare time, but I never meant anything!"
"It may be so," she said; "indeed, you hardly seem to me accountable for your actions or you would not appear in such a ridiculous costume as that, with a sprig of orange-blossom in your button-hole and a high hat, too!"