Kettle drew himself up stiffly and walked to the other end of the bridge, and began ostentatiously to look with a professional eye over his vessel.
Wenlock was quick to see the change. "Come, what is it now, Captain?" he asked with some surprise.
"I don't like the idea of those sort of marriages," said the little sailor, acidly.
Wenlock shrugged his shoulders good-humoredly.
"Neither do I, and if I were a rich man, I wouldn't have dreamed of it. Just think of what the girl probably is: she's been with those niggers since she was quite a kid; she'll be quite uneducated; I'm in hopes she's good-looking and has a decent figure; but at the best she'll be quite unpresentable till I've had her in hand for at least a couple of years, if then. Of course you'll say there's 'romance' about the thing. But then I don't care tuppence about romance, and anyway it's beastly unconfortable to live with."
"I was not looking at that point of view."
"Let me tell you how I was fixed," said Wenlock with a burst of confidence. "I'd a small capital. So I qualified as a solicitor, and put up a door-plate, and waited for a practice. It didn't come. Not a client drifted near me from month's end to month's end. And meanwhile the capital was dribbling away. I felt I was getting on my back legs; it was either a case of the Colonies or the workhouse, and I'd no taste for either; and when the news of this girl Teresa came, I tell you I just jumped at the chance. I don't want to marry her, of course; there are ten other girls I'd rather have as wife; but there was no other way out of the difficulty, so I just swallowed my squeamishness for good and always. See?"
"It was Miss Teresa Anderson I was pitying," said Kettle pointedly.
"Good Lord, man, why? Isn't it the finest thing in the world for her?"
"It might be fine to get away from where she is, and land home to find a nice property waiting. But I don't care to see a woman have a husband forced on her. It would be nobler of you, Mr. Wenlock, to let the young lady get to England, and look round her for a while, and make her own choice."