He defended himself hotly, immensely fortified and upheld by the moral consciousness of being in the wrong.
“Fancy accusing me of being directly responsible for the whim of a neurotic woman.”
“I don’t. Now tell me how you are indirectly responsible—oh, it’s no good, my lad! That rigmarole of ducks and pistols gave you away—to me, at least.”
“It wasn’t my usual style, I admit,” laughed Stuart. And owned to the morning’s conversation with Aureole, when he had spurred rebellion into action. “It won’t do either of ’em any harm, you know; prevent ’em from getting sluggish. Any sort of stir to matrimony;—why,” with fierce indignation, “they might even have come to think themselves happy, if I hadn’t shown them they weren’t.”
“Philanthropist,” softly from the girl beside him in the dimness.
“All the same, I wonder where she can have gone, and what she has done; plenty of spirit there, and character too, if only she weren’t such a wild—goose!”
“Why did you do it?”
Stuart leaned against the boom and faced her squarely.
“I could pretend it’s too late to catch the eight-forty-one,” he said. “Or you could pretend not to know that it’s breaking rules to remain up here alone with me. But we won’t pretend, either of us. The situation is not accidental—they were in the way, and I got rid of them. I wanted one day of sailing by ourselves, that’s all.”