“No, why should I be? I had a devilish headache, but that soon went off, and then Evans gave me Worth’s letter.”
“What must your feelings have been when you read it! He told you the whole?”
“Oh yes, I was excessively shocked! But ever since he had the impudence to interfere over that duel I have not at all liked my cousin, you know.”
“But Perry, he did not interfere! It was he who—”
“Ay, so it was; I was forgetting. But it’s all one: I have been thinking him a shabby fellow these several months.”
“We have not valued Lord Worth’s protection as we should,” said Judith, colouring faintly. “If we had trusted him more, been upon kinder terms, perhaps he need not have put you away, or—”
“Lord, there’s nothing in that!” Peregrine declared. “I am precious glad he did, because I had never been to sea before in my life. I would not have missed it for the world! To own the truth, I did not above half like coming ashore again, except, of course, for seeing you and Harriet. However, I am quite determined to set up a yacht of my own, only it will cost a good deal, I daresay, and ten to one Worth won’t hear of it.”
“I wish,” said Miss Taverner, with some asperity, “that you would give your thoughts a more proper direction! Towards Lord Worth we must be all obligation. Without his protection I am very much disposed to think that you and I should have made but wretched work of everything.”
“It is very true, upon my honour! I assure you I am quite in charity with him. But then, you know, I never disliked him as much as you did, though he has often been amazingly disagreeable.”
Miss Taverner’s flush deepened. “Yes, at first I did dislike him. The circumstances of our—”