“Mr Menotti’s ribbons are pink, madam, you’ll remember, and by this torch-light——”
“But I saw Mrs Freyne calling to me from the deck!” I cried, foolishly enough, clinging tight to his arm as he guided me along the gott.
“Impossible, madam,” says Mr Bellamy, looking me straight in the face. “Mrs Freyne arrived at your budgero at the same moment as I myself—although she crossed from another boat.”
“Questionless I made a mistake,” I said, but my heart would not cease thumping. Was it possible that my papa’s wife could lay such a plot against the honour and happiness of his daughter? “Pray, sir,” I said to the Ensign, “be so good as to attend us home to-night.”
“With pleasure, madam,” said he, “if I may bring Mr le Beaume.”
I had no chance to answer, for we had reached the budgero, where Mrs Freyne was standing outside the cabin speaking to the chief of the boatmen. “You had better push off,” she was saying. “The Chuta Beebee must be returning in some other budgero with her friends. I can’t wait here all night.”
“Oh, pardon me, madam; I have found the vanished fair,” says Ensign Bellamy, handing me on board. “May I venture to entreat a passage on your vessel for myself and my friend le Beaume? My father always warns me that he won’t stay for me at these entertainments, and to-night he departed early with the other great folks, leaving us two poor babes in the wood to get home as best we might.”
“Oh, pray summon your friend, sir,” says Mrs Freyne, to whom this speech had given time to recover her countenance, for she had changed colour at the sight of me. “Me and Miss will be enchanted to have your company.”
I dare to say that my stepmother blessed the young gentlemen as heartily in her mind as I did, for I can’t conceive how she and I should have faced one another, or how we should have conversed, had we been left to ourselves. As it was, we were attended gallantly home by Mess. le Beaume and Bellamy, and I fancy the latter gentleman must have got a word with my papa, for as I bade him good-night Mr Freyne said to me, so as only I could hear—
“So I understand that my girl en’t safe in company without her papa? After this evening, miss, I’ll take care to go out with you, unless your friend Mrs Hurstwood will take charge of you. But indeed I shall be forced to send your Fraser a despatch to come here post-haste and take you off my hands, for you’re a sad tiresome piece of goods, dragging me away from my quiet hooker on my own varanda.”