'I believe I should have suffered less if it had been diabolically rough. Oh, that monotonous flip-flap of the water, that slow heaving of the boat! Nothing could be worse.'
'I am glad to hear you say that, for Don Gomez says we are likely to have a tempest.'
'A tempest!' shrieked Georgie. 'Then let him stop the boat this instant and put me on shore. Tell him to land me anywhere—on the Needles even. I could stop at the lighthouse till morning. A storm at sea will be simply my death.'
'Dear Lady Kirkbank, I was only joking,' said Lesbia, who did not want to be worried by her chaperon's nervous apprehensions: 'so far the night is lovely.'
'Give me a spoonful more brandy, my good creature,'—to Kibble. 'Lesbia, you ought never to have brought me into this miserable state. I consented to staying on board the yacht; but I never consented to sailing on her.'
'You will soon be well, dear Lady Kirkbank; and you will have such an appetite for breakfast to-morrow morning.'
'Where shall we be at breakfast time?'
'Off St. Catherine's Point, I believe—just half way round the island.'
'If we are not at the bottom of the sea,' groaned Georgie.
They were now in the open Channel, and the boat dipped and rose to larger billows than had encountered her course before. Lady Kirkbank lay in a state of collapse, in which life seemed only sustainable by occasional teaspoonfuls of cognac gently tilted down her throat by the patient Kibble.