“Ah, you love me,” he cried, leaning toward her. But she shook her head.
“No, I love Dan Darrin—in that way. It may be that I love you in another—as a brother, or a father—”
Black Pawl laughed angrily. “You’ll be a sister to me! Fiddle and all! I want no sisters. And—even though to you I may seem old enough for fathering, I’m not. I tell you I’m as much a boy as Dan Darrin, where you’re concerned. Father! Brother! Fiddling talk!”
“Friends, then,” she suggested straightforwardly. “We’ll always be friends.”
“I’m no hand for friends,” said Black Pawl. “It’s a milk-and-water word, where a man and a woman are in the matter.”
She said, a little impatiently: “You’re not very reasonable. And—you’d be the better for friends, Black Pawl.”
He leaned back in his chair, and his eyes fell; he thought, abruptly, of his son; and a great hopelessness settled down upon the man. He did not know just what he had hoped for; he had not meant to speak thus to this girl. After all, what could he expect? Hers was the privilege to laugh at him. He was an old man, and he must accept youth’s judgment upon him.
Through the current of his thoughts, he heard Marvin, the cook, come down into the cabin to get food from the captain’s stores, below. He heard Ruth speak to the man, and heard them talk together. Ruth liked old Marvin; they were, in a fashion, cronies. She got up and stood and talked with him, while Black Pawl’s sick thoughts ran on.
He forgot the other two were there, and thought of himself, and of Red Pawl. He was sick with the sickness of despair. He felt himself weak and shaken, and cursed himself for being weak. He thought that he had thrown himself at this child’s feet, and she had laughed at him. Some day she would tell Dan Darrin, and they would laugh together at the weakness of Black Pawl. The thought was bitter, for strength was his pride and boast, and there was no living man who had seen that strength broken. All his life he had been known for a strong man and a ruthless one; and this frail girl had laughed at him. The tale would go abroad.
He did not care for that. Let men laugh; they would not laugh to his face. But the girl would laugh—she and Dan Darrin. And—would they not have the right to mock him? Was he not a jest and a joke upon the face of the waters? He was master of the Deborah, and master of all aboard her! Did she know that, this child? She must know; yet she was not afraid. Rather, she laughed.