She raised her head at that. “If I did indeed say that on that hateful day I beg your pardon,” she said. “You have never given me—would never give me, I am persuaded—the least cause for mistrusting you.” She saw the frown in his eyes, and wondered at it. “You are still angry. You don’t believe me when I say that I am sorry.”
He put out his hand quickly. “My dear child! Of course I believe you. If I looked angry you must blame circumstance, which has forced me to—” He broke off, and smiled at her.
“Shall we put the memory of that day at Cuckfield out of mind?”
“If you please,” whispered Miss Taverner. “I am aware—have been aware almost from the start—that I ought not to have driven myself from London as I did.”
“Miss Taverner,” he said, “I am seriously alarmed. Are you sure that you are yourself?”
She smiled, but shook her head. “I am not sufficiently myself to quarrel with you to-night, provoke me how you may.”
“Poor Clorinda! I won’t provoke you any more, I promise,” he said, and drawing her hand through his arm, led her to the door into the Chinese Gallery and so out to her carriage.
Chapter XXI
Mr. Brummell, who had elected to stroll across from his lodgings on the Steyne to the Earl of Worth’s house on the morning after the party at the Pavilion, set the red Pekin sweetmeat-box of carved lacquer down on the table with tender care, and sighed. “Yes,” he said. “I am inclined to hazard the opinion that it is quite genuine. Ch’ien Lung. Pray remove it from my sight.”
The Earl restored the box to its place in the cabinet. “I found it in Lewes, of all unlikely places. Charles will not allow it to be worth a guinea.”