Many Cargoes | Page 8

mate; "don't you trouble about me."
"You see what you get for behaving badly," said Miss Alsen judicially.
"It's worth it," said the mate, brightening.
"I'm afraid it'll blister," said she. She crossed over to him, and putting her head on one side, eyed the traces wisely. "Three marks," she said.
"I only had one," suggested the mate.
"One what?" enquired Hetty.
"Those," said the mate.
In full view of the horrified skipper, who was cautiously peeping at the supposed lunatic through the skylight, he kissed her again.
"You can go away, Ben," said the skipper huskily to the expert. "D'ye hear, you can go AWAY, and not a word about this, mind."
The expert went away grumbling, and the father, after another glance, which showed him his daughter nestling comfortably on the mate's right shoulder, stole away and brooded darkly over this crowning complication. An ordinary man would have run down and interrupted them; the master of the Jessica thought he could attain his ends more certainly by diplomacy, and so careful was his demeanour that the couple in the cabin had no idea that they had been observed--the mate listening calmly to a lecture on incipient idiocy which the skipper thought it advisable to bestow.
Until the mid-day meal on the day following he made no sign. If anything he was even more affable than usual, though his wrath rose at the glances which were being exchanged across the table.
"By the way, Jack," he said at length, "what's become of Kitty Loney?"
"Who?" inquired the mate. "Who's Kitty Loney?"
It was now the skipper's turn to stare, and he did it admirably.
"Kitty Loney," he said in surprise, "the little girl you are going to marry."
"Who are you getting at?" said the mate, going scarlet as he met the gaze opposite.
"I don't know what you mean," said the skipper with dignity. "I'm allooding to Kitty Loney, the little girl in the red hat and white feathers you introduced to me as your future."
The mate sank back in his seat, and regarded him with open-mouthed, horrified astonishment.
"You don't mean to say you've chucked 'er," pursued the heartless skipper, "after getting an advance from me to buy the ring with, too? Didn't you buy the ring with the money?"
"No," said the mate, "I--oh, no--of course--what on earth are you talking about?"
The skipper rose from his seat and regarded him sorrowfully but severely. "I'm sorry, Jack," he said stiffly, "if I've said anything to annoy you, or anyway hurt your feelings. O' course it's your business, not mine. P'raps you'll say you never heard o' Kitty Loney?"
"I do say so," said the bewildered mate; "I do say so."
The skipper eyed him sternly, and without another word left the cabin. "If she's like her mother," he said to himself, chuckling as he went up the companion-ladder, "I think that'll do."
There was an awkward pause after his departure. "I'm sure I don't know what you must think of me," said the mate at length, "but I don't know what your father's talking about."
"I don't think anything," said Hetty calmly. "Pass the potatoes, please."
"I suppose it's a joke of his," said the mate, complying.
"And the salt," said she; "thank you."
"But you don't believe it?" said the mate pathetically.
"Oh, don't be silly," said the girl calmly. "What does it matter whether I do or not?"
"It matters a great deal," said the mate gloomily. "It's life or death to me."
"Oh, nonsense," said Hetty. "She won't know of your foolishness. I won't tell her."
"I tell you," said the mate desperately, "there never was a Kitty Loney. What do you think of that?"
"I think you are very mean," said the girl scornfully; "don't talk to me any more, please."
"Just as you like," said the mate, beginning to lose his temper.
He pushed his plate from him and departed, while the girl, angry and resentful, put the potatoes back as being too floury for consumption in the circumstances.
For the remainder of the passage she treated him with a politeness and good humour through which he strove in vain to break. To her surprise her father made no objection, at the end of the voyage, when she coaxingly suggested going back by train; and the mate, as they sat at dummy-whist on the evening before her departure, tried in vain to discuss the journey in an unconcerned fashion.
"It'll be a long journey," said Hetty, who still liked him well enough to make him smart a bit, "What's trumps?"
"You'll be all right," said her father. "Spades."
He won for the third time that evening, and, feeling wonderfully well satisfied with the way in which he had played his cards generally, could not resist another gibe at the crestfallen mate.
"You'll have to give up playing cards and all that sort o' thing when you're married, Jack," said he.
"Ay, ay," said the mate recklessly, "Kitty don't like cards."
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