“Martha! you’re a fool!” said Mr. Pole, looking the victim of one of his fits of agitation.  “Who knows whether he was there better than you?  You’ll be forgetting soon that we’ve ever dined together.  I hate to see a woman so absurd!  There—­never mind!  Go in:  take off bonnet something —­anything! only I can’t bear folly!  Eh, Mr. Runningbrook?”

“’Deed, Pole, and ye’re mad.”  Mrs. Chump crossed her hands to reply with full repose.  “I’d like to know how I’m to know what I never said.”

The scene was growing critical.  Adela consulted the eyes of her sisters, which plainly said that this was her peculiar scrape.  Adela ended it by going up to Mrs. Chump, taking her by the shoulders, and putting a kiss upon her forehead.  “Now you will see better,” she said.  “Don’t you know Mr. Pericles was not with us?  As surely as he was with the Tinleys this morning!”

“And a nice morning it is!” ejaculated Mr. Pole, trotting off hurriedly.

“Does Pole think—­” Mrs. Chump murmured, with reference to her voyaging on the yacht.  The kiss had bewildered her sequent sensations.

“He does think, and will think, and must think,” Adela prattled some persuasive infantine nonsense:  her soul all the while in revolt against her sisters, who left her the work to do, and took the position of spectators and critics, condemning an effort they had not courage to attempt.

“By the way, I have to congratulate a friend of mine,” said Tracy, selecting Adela for an ironical bow.

“Then it is Captain Gambier,” cried Mrs. Chump, as if a whole revelation had burst on her.  Adela blushed.  “Oh! and what was that I heard?” continued the aggravating woman.

Adela flashed her eyes round on her sisters.  Even then they left her without aid, their feeling being that she had debased the house by her familiarity with this woman before Tracy.

“Stay! didn’t ye both—­” Mrs. Chump was saying.

“Yes?”—­Adela passed by her—­“only in your ears alone, you know!  “At which hint Mrs. Chump gleefully turned and followed her.  A rumour was prevalent of some misadventure to Adela and the captain on board the yacht.  Arabella saw her depart, thinking, “How singular is her propensity to imitate me!” for the affirmative uttered in the tone of interrogation was quite Arabella’s own; as also occasionally the negative,—­the negative, however, suiting the musical indifference of the sound, and its implied calm breast.

“As for Pericles,” said Tracy, “you need not wonder that the fellow prays in other pews than yours.  By heaven! he may pray and pray:  I’d send him to Hades with an epigram in his heart!”

From Tracy the ladies learnt that Wilfrid had inflicted public chastisement upon Mr. Pericles for saying a false thing of Emilia.  He danced the prettiest pas seal that was ever footed by debutant on the hot iron plates of Purgatory.  They dared not ask what it was that Mr. Pericles had said, but Tracy was so vehement on the subject of his having met his deserts, that they partly guessed it to bear some relation to their sex’s defencelessness, and they approved their brother’s work.