‘Yes. Our house, or rather his, not mine, is at South Kensington. We have lived there for years. But we have been tenants of Sylvania Castle, on the island here, this season. We took it for a month or two of the owner, who is away.’
‘Then I have been staying quite near you, Miss Bencomb. My father’s is a comparatively humble residence hard by.’
‘But he could afford a much bigger one if he chose.’
‘You have heard so? I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me much of his affairs.’
‘My father,’ she burst out suddenly, ‘is always scolding me for my extravagance! And he has been doing it to-day more than ever. He said I go shopping in town to simply a diabolical extent, and exceed my allowance!’
‘Was that this evening?’
‘Yes. And then it reached such a storm of passion between us that I pretended to retire to my room for the rest of the evening, but I slipped out; and I am never going back home again.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I shall go first to my aunt in London; and if she won’t have me, I’ll work for a living. I have left my father for ever! What I should have done if I had not met you I cannot tell—I must have walked all the way to London, I suppose. Now I shall take the train as soon as I reach the mainland.’
‘If you ever do in this hurricane.’