“I should think not,” said Caerleon. “We could never aspire to approach you in that. But—you will excuse my saying it—I don’t think my presence on board your yacht would meet with Miss O’Malachy’s approval.”
“What!” cried the Princess, with astonishing duplicity, “am I to understand that Miss O’Malachy has been making herself disagreeable to my guests, in my house?”
“Good gracious! I shall get the poor girl into trouble,” was Caerleon’s instant reflection. Aloud he added hastily, “Not at all, I assure you. It was merely a fancy of mine that she might not care for me as a fellow-passenger.”
“Then I trust that it will remain a fancy. I should be very seriously displeased if Miss O’Malachy forgot herself in such an extraordinary way. But perhaps you do not wish to leave Malta at present?”
“It’s the very thing I do wish,” cried Caerleon. The leaders of Valetta society had shown a tendency to lionise him of late, and an enterprising newspaper man had come out from England expressly to interview him. “I am absolutely yearning to get away.”
“Then come with us,” said the Princess. “Come as a favour to me. I am really afraid of the captain of my yacht, and all my friends here tell me that I ought to get rid of him. He seems to have been boasting to his acquaintances in the harbour that he can make me do as he likes. There is no harm in that, so long as he does not make me do anything wrong, but it was unnecessary to publish abroad the fact. I will not discharge him, for I have no fault to find with him professionally, and it is only reasonable to suppose that he must know more about the sea than I. But still, I do not care that he should regulate all my movements, and I have been looking to you to protect me against him.”
“Oh, if I can be of any use——”
“Then it is settled. You are coming with us. And now, I want your help at once. Captain Binks informed me this morning that if I had any intention of continuing my voyage at all, this was the time for visiting the Ægean. Just to prove to him that I am a free agent, can you suggest any cruising-ground that is not the Ægean?”
“Let me see. You are in search of the places visited by St Paul, are you not? Well, you know, there is the other Malta—the other Melita, I mean—up somewhere in the Adriatic, off the Austrian coast.” Caerleon spoke from a somewhat hazy recollection of long-past discussions which had enlivened various Greek Testament classes in his college days. “I believe the theory that it is the real Melita is quite exploded, but you are not bound to concur with the critics without seeing the place for yourself. It would be fairly new ground, and you could touch at the Ionian Islands on the way.”
“Excellent!” cried the Princess, clapping her hands. “I think we shall astonish Captain Binks.”