‘Why can’t you take things pleasantly, dear?’ she pleaded.  ’Do now, like a good soul.  You heard him say he was well off, and that he will take me to Paris next winter, and you can come to us there on your way from Cannes, and stay with us till Easter.  It will be so nice when the Prince and all the best people are in Paris.  We shall only stay in Cuba till the fuss about my running away is all over, and people have forgotten, don’t you know.  As for Mr. Smithson, why should I have any more compunction about jilting him than he had about that poor Miss Trinder?  By-the-bye, I want you to send him back all his presents for me.  They are almost all in Arlington Street.  I brought nothing with me except my engagement ring,’ looking down at the half-hoop of diamonds, and pulling it off her fingers as she talked.  ‘I had a kind of presentiment——­’

‘You mean that you had made up your mind to throw him over.’

’No.  But I felt there were breakers ahead.  It might have come to throwing myself into the sea.  Perhaps you would have liked that better than what has happened.’

’I don’t know, I’m sure.  The whole thing is disgraceful.  London will ring with the scandal.  What am I to say to Lady Maulevrier, to your brother?  And pray how do you propose to get married at Havre?  You cannot be married in a French town by merely holding up your finger.  There are no registry offices.  I am sure I have no idea how the thing is done.’

’Don Gomez has arranged all that—­everything has been thought of—­everything has been planned.  A steamer will take us to St. Thomas, and another steamer will take us on to Cuba.’

‘But the marriage—­the licence?’

’I tell you everything has been provided for.  Please take this ring and send it to Mr. Smithson when you go back to England.’

‘Send it to him yourself.  I will have nothing to do with it.’

‘How dreadfully disagreeable you are,’ said Lesbia, pouting, ’just because I am marrying to please myself, instead of to please you.  It is frightfully selfish of you.’

Montesma came in at this moment.  He, too, had dressed himself freshly, and was looking his handsomest, in that buccaneer style of costume which he wore when he sailed the yacht.  He and Lesbia breakfasted at their ease, while Lady Kirkbank reclined in her bamboo arm-chair, feeling very unhappy in her mind and far from well.  Neptune and she could not accommodate themselves.

After a leisurely breakfast, enlivened by talk and laughter, the cabin windows open, the sun shining, the freshening breeze blowing in, Lesbia and Don Gomez went on deck, and he reclined at her feet while she read to him from the pages of her favourite Keats, read languidly, lazily, yet exquisitely, for she had been taught to read as well as to sing.  The poetry seemed to have been written on purpose for them; and the sky and the atmosphere around them seemed to have been made for the poetry.  And so, with intervals of strolling on the deck, and an hour or so dawdled away at luncheon, and a leisurely afternoon tea, the day wore on to sunset, and they went back to Keats, while Lady Kirkbank sulked and slept in a corner of the saloon.