"There is an easy way of proving your sincerity, sir, if you choose to avail yourself of it," she said. "I find it very difficult to believe, from the evident feebleness of your intellect, that you can be the person chiefly responsible for this scandal. Am I correct in my supposition?"
"You are, madam," said Peter. "I should never have got myself into such a tangle as this, if I had not been talked over by Mr. Perkins. I don't know if I can succeed in making myself clear, for the whole business is rather complicated; but I can try to explain it, if you will only have a little patience."
"You have said quite enough," she said. "I know all I wish to know now. So it was Mr. Perkins, who has been using you as his instrument, was it?"
"Certainly," said Peter; "but for him, nothing of this would have happened."
"You will have no objection to repeating that statement, should I call upon you to do so?"
"No," said Peter, who observed with pleasure that her wrath against himself was almost entirely moderated; "but you will have to call soon, or I shall have gone. I—I don't know if I shall have another opportunity of meeting Mr. Perkins; but if I did, I should certainly tell him that I do not consider he has treated me quite fairly. He has put me in what I may call a false position, in several false positions; and if I had had the knowledge I have now, I should have had nothing to do with him from the first. He entirely misled me over this business!"
"Very well, sir," she said; "you have shown a more gentlemanly spirit, on the whole, than I expected. I am glad to find that your evil has been wrought more by want of thought than heart. It will be for you to complete your reparation when the proper time arrives. In the meantime, let this be a warning to you, sir, never to——" ...
But here Peter made the sudden discovery that he was no longer in the music-room of the Boomerang, but at home in his old easy-chair by his bachelor fireside.
"Phew!" he muttered to himself, "that was a bad quarter of an hour while it lasted! What an old she-dragon it was! But she's right—it is a warning to me. I mustn't—I really must not draw any more of these confounded time cheques. I've made that ship too hot to hold me already! I'd better remain for ever in contented ignorance of how I spent that extra time, than go on getting into one mess after another like this! It was a wonder I got out of this one as well as I did; but evidently that old woman knew what Perkins is, and saw I wasn't to blame. Now she'll explain the whole affair to all those girls (whoever they may be), and pitch into Perkins—and serve him right! I'm out of it, at any rate; and now, thank goodness, after to-morrow I shall have nothing to do but live contentedly and happily with dearest Sophia! I'd better burn this beastly cheque-book—I shall never want it again!"