’They would have been stained with the blood of the niggers he traded in out yonder,’ answered Maulevrier.  ’Do you think I would have let my sister marry a slave-dealer?’

‘I don’t believe a syllable of it,’ protested Lady Kirkbank, dabbing her brow with a handkerchief steeped in eau de Cologne.  ’A vile fabrication of Montesma’s, who wanted to blacken poor Smithson’s character in order to extenuate his own crimes.’

‘Well, we won’t go into that question,’ said Maulevrier wearily.  ’The Smithson match is off, anyhow; and it matters very little to us whether he made most money out of niggers or bubble companies, or lotteries or gaming hells.’

’I am convinced that Smithson made his fortune in a thoroughly gentlemanlike manner,’ argued Lady Kirkbank.  ’Look at the people who visit him, and the houses he goes to.  And I don’t see why the match need be off.  I’m sure, if Lesbia plays her cards properly, he will look over this—­this—­little escapade.’

Maulevrier contemplated the worldly old face with infinite scorn.

‘Does she look like a girl who will play her cards in your fashion?’ he asked, pointing to his sister, whose white face upon the pillow seemed like a mask cut out of marble.  ’Upon my soul, Lady Kirkbank, I consider my sister’s elopement with this Spanish adventurer, with whom she was over head and ears in love, a far more respectable act than her engagement to Smithson, for whom she cared not a straw.’

’Well, I hope if you so approve of her conduct you will help her to pay her dressmaker, and the rest of them,’ retorted Lady Kirkbank.  ’She has been plunging rather deeply, I believe, under the impression that Smithson would pay all her bills when she was married.  Your grandmother may not quite like the budget.’

‘I will do all I can for her,’ answered Maulevrier.  ’I would do a great deal to save her from the degradation to which your teaching has brought her.’

Lady Kirkbank looked at him for a moment or so with reproachful eyes, and then shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.

’If I ever expected gratitude from people I might feel the injustice—­the insolence—­of your last remark,’ she said; ’but as I never do expect gratitude, I am not disappointed in this case.  And now I think if there is a cabin which I can have to myself I should like to retire to it,’ she added.  ‘My cares are thrown away here.’

There was a cabin at Lady Kirkbank’s disposal.  It had been already appropriated by Rilboche, and smelt of cognac; but Rilboche resigned her berth to her mistress, and laid herself meekly on the floor for the rest of the voyage.

They were in Cowes Roads at eight o’clock next morning, and Lord Hartfield went on shore for a doctor, whom he brought back before nine, and who pronounced Lady Lesbia to be in a very weak and prostrate condition, and forbade her being moved within the next two days.  Happily Lord Hartfield had borrowed the Philomel and her crew from a friend who had given him carte blanche as to the use he made of her, and who freely left her at his disposal so long as he and his party should need the accommodation.  Lesbia could nowhere be better off than on the yacht, where she was away from the gossip and tittle-tattle of the town.