“Certainly you did,” agreed Sir Tristram, releasing her. “You would have been well served had I really thrown cold water over you. Are you at all hurt?”
“Oh no, merely a bruise or two! Your intervention was most timely.”
“And if I had not happened to have been there?”
“I should have allowed them to drag me back here, of course, and fainted in Hugh’s arms instead of yours.”
He smiled a little, but only said: “You shouldn’t have done it.”
“Oh, perhaps it was not, as Eustacie would say, quite convenable,” she replied, “but you will admit that it has rid us of a grave danger.”
“You might have been badly hurt,” he answered.
“Well, I was not badly hurt, so we shall not consider that.”
At this moment Ludovic strolled into the room, and slid his sound arm round Miss Thane’s waist, and kissed her cheek. “Sally, I swear you’re an angel!” he declared.
“Anything less angelic than her conduct during the past half-hour I have yet to see,” observed Sir Tristram. “An accomplished liar would be nearer the mark.”