She stretched out her hand to him. "If I look anxious it is on your account. Dear Charles, I am so sorry this should have happened! Don't let it vex you: it was all mischief, nothing else!"
He grasped her hand for a moment, and said in a low voice: "Unpleasant mischief.It is the fault of that wretched up-bringing! Sometimes I fear - But the heart is unspoiled. Try to believe that: I know it!"
She could only press his fingers understandingly. He held her hand an instant longer, then, with a brief smile, let it go and walked out of the room.
Peregrine was not to be found at his house, but Colonel Audley sent up his card to Lady Taverner, and was presently admitted into her salon.
She received him with evident agitation. She looked frightened, and greeted him with nervous breathlessness, trying to seem at ease, but failing miserably.
He shook hands with her, and put her out of her agony of uncertainty by coming straight to the point. "Lady Taverner, we are old friends," he said in his pleasant way. "You need not be afraid to trust me, and I need not, I know, fear to be frank with you. I have come about this nonsensical affair of Peregrine's. Shall we sit down and talk it over sensibly together?"
She said faintly: "Oh! How can I -You - I do not know how to -"
"You will agree that I am concerned in it as much as you are," he said. "Judith has been telling me the whole. What a tangle it is! And all arising out of my stupidity in allowing Peregrine to be my deputy that evening! Can you forgive me?"
She sank down upon the sofa, averting her face. "I'm sure you never dreamed - Judith says it is my own fault, that I brought it on myself by my folly!"
"I think the hardest thing of all is to be wise in our dealings with the people we love," he said. "I know I have found it so."