“No, I don’t,” objected Peregrine. “I never mistrusted him, Ju. It was you who did that. All I ever said of him was—But that don’t signify!”
“All you ever said of me was that I was the most unamiable person of your acquaintance,” said the Earl. He flicked open his snuff-box and offered it to Peregrine.
Peregrine looked as though he could hardly believe his eyes, and blurted out: “You have never done that before, sir!”
“I am in an unusually mellow mood to-day,” explained the Earl.
Peregrine took a pinch, and his sister, seizing the opportunity for speech afforded by him being slightly overcome by the honour of being invited to help himself out of the Earl’s box, said: “Lord Worth knows, I hope, that it is many months since I was foolish enough to mistrust him.”
“Lord Worth is much obliged to you, Miss Taverner,” said the Earl.
She raised her eyes rather shyly to his, and saw that he was still looking amused. She said with an admonitory glance at Peregrine: “Had we been more in the habit of attending to you perhaps none of the measures you have had to take for Peregrine’s safety would have been necessary. I think we do owe you an apology; and we are very grateful to you for your care, are we not, Perry?”
“Yes, of course,” replied Peregrine, brushing some grains of snuff from his sleeve. “Extremely so, and I more than my sister, sir, because if you had not put me away as you did, I might never have taken it into my head to go for a cruise my whole life long. And that does not bear thinking of, for sailing a yacht, you know, has even curricle-racing beat to a standstill. I like it better, at all events.”
“I hope you do it better,” commented the Earl.
“Well, I believe I shall,” said Peregrine eagerly. “And that is what I wanted to ask you. Nothing will ever satisfy me until I may have a yacht of my own! Pray do not say no! I daresay that is what you mean to do, but only consider! If it does mean that I must have a larger allowance, you cannot object to that, surely! And Harriet would like it excessively! I told her how enchanted she would be, and she agreed to it at once. But you must give me an answer soon, if you please, because the case is that Evans knows of just such a vessel as would suit me—two-masted, fore-and-aft rigged: the neatest little craft imaginable, he says! She is lying in Southampton Water. I forgot who owns her, but she is to be sold privately, and Evans says I could not do better than to snap her up before it becomes generally known. And Evans has a cousin who would be the very man to put in command of her. He says—”