“It is true, sir,” she insisted, suspecting him of irony. “When I was sick on that yacht — ”
He raised one thin hand. “I accept your reading of his lordship’s true nature, Miss Challoner. Spare me a recital of your sufferings at sea, I beg of you.”
She smiled. “They were excessively painful, sir, I assure you. But we arrived at length at Dieppe, where his lordship had planned to spend the night. We dined. His lordship had, I think, been drinking aboard the yacht. He was in an ugly mood, and I was compelled, in the end, to protect my virtue in a somewhat drastic manner.”
The gentleman opened his snuff-box, and took a pinch delicately. “If you succeeded in protecting your virtue, my dear Miss Challoner, I can readily believe — knowing his lordship — that your methods must have been exceedingly drastic. You perceive me positively agog with curiosity.”
“I shot him,” she said bluntly.
The hand that was raising the pinch of snuff to one nostril was checked for a brief moment. “Accept my compliments,” said the gentleman calmly, and inhaled the snuff.
“It was not a very bad wound,” she told him. “But it sobered him, you see.”
“I imagine that it might do so,” he conceded.
“Yes, sir. He began to realize that I was not — not vulgarly coy, but in deadly earnest.”
“Did he indeed? A gentleman of intuition, I perceive.”