“Oh, the smuggler has departed, has he?”
“But yes, the very next day! What else?”
“I am sure I do not know. I expect I am very stupid,” he added apologetically, “but there do seem to me to be one or two unexplained points to this adventure. I find myself quite at a loss to understand Tristram’s part in it. How were you able to persuade so stern a pattern of rectitude to support your story, my dear?”
Eustacie began to wish very much that Tristram and Sarah would finish their search and come to her rescue. “Oh, but, you see, when it was explained to him Tristram was grateful to my smuggler for saving me!”
“Oh!” said the Beau, blinking. “Tristram was grateful. Yes, I see. How little one knows of people, after all! It must have gone sadly against the grain with him, I feel. He has not breathed a word of it to me.”
“No, and I think it is very foolish of him,” returned Eustacie. “Tristram does not wish anyone to know of my adventure, because he says I have behaved with impropriety, and it had better immediately be forgotten.”
“Ah, that is much better!” said the Beau approvingly. “I feel that he may well have said that.”
This rejoinder, which seemed to convey a disturbing disbelief in the rest of her story, left Eustacie without a word to say. The Beau, seeing her discomfiture, smiled more broadly, and said: “You know, you have quite forgotten to tell me that your smuggler was one of Sylvester’s bastards.”
Eustacie felt the colour rise in her cheeks, and at once turned it to account, exclaiming in shocked tones: “Cousin!” in
“I beg your pardon!” he said, with exaggerated concern. “I should have said love-children.”