“Lord, how can I be? I never heard such a pack of nonsense in my life. This is what comes of reading Mrs. Radclyffe’s novels! It is a famous joke, I declare!”
“What is a famous joke? May I share it?”
Judith looked quickly round. The Earl had come into the room, and was standing by the table, inscrutably regarding them. How much he had heard of their conversation she could not guess, but she coloured deeply, and sprang up, turning her head away.
“Oh, it is the best thing I have heard these ten years!” said Peregrine. “Judith thinks I am being poisoned!”
“Indeed!” said the Earl, glancing in Judith’s direction. “May I know who it is Miss Taverner suspects of poisoning you?”
She threw her brother an angry, reproachful look, and went past the Earl to the door. “Peregrine is jesting. I believe him to have taken something that has not agreed with him, that is all.”
She went out, and the Earl, looking after her in silence for a moment, presently turned back to Peregrine, and, laying a silver snuff-box on the table, said: “This is yours, I fancy. It was found in the Blue Saloon.”
“Oh, thank you! Yes, it is mine,” said Peregrine, picking it up and idly flicking it open. “I did not know I had so much snuff in it, however; I thought it had been no more than half full. You know, Petersham found it to be a very good mixture. You heard him say so. I wish you would try it!”
“Very well,” said the Earl, dipping his finger and thumb in the box.
Peregrine, much gratified, also took a pinch, and inhaled it carelessly. “I like it as well as most,” he said. “I do not see what there is to object to in it.”