“You!” she exclaimed. “Are you running away from or with anybody, that you suddenly annex an ocean steamer? You were prosing only yesterday afternoon about work and duty, as if nothing could separate you from Harmouth. Is the attraction going to bolt with you, Stevie?”
Stephen could have killed her as she lay there, allowing her tongue free play with his most intimate concerns, but the respect due to an old woman, to say nothing of an aunt, restrained his anger, and he answered, coldly:
“If you want to get rid of the yacht for the rest of the year, say so. My friend, Simeon Ponsonby, is lost in the wilderness of Patagonia, and I am organizing a party to search for him. I shall have to resign my work at Harmouth, but I feel responsible for poor Ponsonby’s fate; I sent him on the expedition.”
“Ah! did you?” she said, laughing wickedly. “Poor Uriah has been disposed of, and now the lady sends you to look for his bones. Don’t look too hard, Stevie, you might find he wasn’t lost, after all!”
“Stop!” cried French, springing to his feet. “How dare you make a jest of other people’s misfortunes? Is there so little decency among your associates that you no longer recognize it when you see it?”
She had the grace to look ashamed.
“Take the yacht, my dear,” she said, kindly, “and if the expense is too great for your income, you can draw on me for what you like. Can’t you stand a little teasing from your old aunt?”
“I will take the yacht, and pay for it,” said French. “As for the teasing, we seem to have different ideas about what is amusing.”
“Then forgive me,” she pleaded, and there were tears in her eyes, “and be careful of yourself, my dear boy, in this dismal expedition. Take plenty of furs, and beware of the cannibals.”
She won a smile from him as he bent over her sofa to kiss her good-by, but she reserved further comments upon his errantry for Bob.