“Good Lord, no,” said Cairns. “She’s right enough. Get her reconditioned, and no one would recognize her.”
Mr. Gann and Mr. Rice were both suffering from the cold, and both weary of the excursion. At their request the boat was turned and the party made its way back to Liverpool.
Miss Verinder was more wonderful still at the final meeting with the timorous owner and his agent. They all sat round a carved oak table in a luxurious private sitting-room at the hotel; but, as the manager had not been able to allow them a fire, Miss Verinder retained her fur wraps and the gentlemen their overcoats. She took no part in a lengthy struggle with regard to the price they were to pay. Cairns and the agent grew heated in a contest of praise and disparagement. Mr. Gann became sadder and more sad. Mr. Rice at last told Mr. Jones, the owner, that to ask twelve thousand pounds for a rotten old tub like the Marian II. was high-seas piracy; and Mr. Jones said that unless this word was immediately withdrawn he would break off the negotiation. To show that he was in earnest, he pushed back his chair and put on his hat.
“Ladies present, kindly remember,” said Cairns.
“Oh, please don’t mind me,” said Miss Verinder, sweetly. Then she went and rang an electric bell while the others continued to wrangle.
A waiter brought, not inopportunely, a tray with sandwiches, biscuits, whisky, soda water; and, at Miss Verinder’s request, the gentlemen consented to take light refreshment.
Then she sat at the table again, and smiled deprecatingly at Mr. Jones.
“Will you allow me to speak quite frankly, Mr. Jones?”
Mr. Jones, with his mouth full of biscuit, signified assent; and Emmie startled him and her allies by a quiet but entirely damaging attack upon the Marian II. She said that if Mr. Jones was fond of Marian II. and wanted to keep her, there was no more to be said. But if he really wished to sell the ship, she must confess that the price he was asking struck her as quite ridiculous. She admitted that Marian II. was the best of the bunch. “Oh, yes, certainly. As to the other two—” and she gave a little shiver, as if upset by the mere recollection of their state. One of them, she went on demurely, was to her mind little better than a derelict, and the other one gave her an impression of being about to sink at its moorings.