Gwen flashed a look at me I hardly understood.
“You seem anxious to get rid of us,” she said. “Is our dishevelled appearance too much for you? We’ll endeavor not to obtrude our society upon you more than necessary.”
She looked so adorable as she said it, with the little curls just leaning down her forehead to peep into her blue eyes, that I could have seized her in my arms then and there, and dared Denvarre to so much as think of her again. As things were, being at the end of the nineteenth century, and not in the middle of the tenth, I smiled apathetically, and answered with as much emotion in my voice as there is in a phonograph:
“It must be very uncomfortable for you, I fear. No clothes, no luxuries, no anything.”
“Neither Vi nor I are made of Italian glass,” she answered quaintly, “and mother’s tougher than she looks. Truth to tell, I was getting bored on the yacht. This sort of thing suits me excellently—I adore adventure. But I’m sorry, of course, if our coming has put you about,” and she smiled again, happily.
I suppose it is the nature of the sweetest of women to be merciless at times. I reflected this in excuse as I gazed seawards without finding an answer, and thrusting back the words that came bubbling to my lips. The wretchedness must have been apparent in my face, for she suddenly changed the conversation as we strolled forward.
“So you’re no longer Captain Dorinecourte?”
“Alas, no,” said I forgetfully.
She turned quickly to look at me with surprise.
“Good gracious! Lord Heatherslie, aren’t you glad to have the title?”