Devenish winced, and his dark, clear skin was stained a deeper shade; as for Nan, she was so heated that every tear had dried upon her angry blushes.
"If you are thinking of me," he said, "you certainly aren't thinking of what you are saying, or you would remember that a year's leave is a year's leave."
"And that yours isn't up till May," she added with ironic levity. "It's no business of mine, of course; only you shouldn't start comparisons between the man who stays and the man who turns back."
"I am also in less need of money," he told her through his teeth.
"Money!" she cried in unrestrained contempt. "I wasn't thinking of the money—I was thinking of the fun and adventure and romance that would have enticed every man worth calling a man, once he had got so far—except you!"
"From their sweethearts even!" he hissed out, with a devilish nod—"from the girls they pretend they want to marry!"
Nan was stung in her turn; and hers was a poisonous sting. The blood drained from her face. It was some moments before she could speak.
"That is their business," she whispered at last. "At all events you know what I should have thought of Denis if he hadn't stayed; but if you want to know what I think of him now, you shall." And with trembling lips, before Ralph, before the man at the wheel, before the officer and the midshipman of the watch, Miss Merridew kissed the bloodstone signet ring upon the third finger of her left hand. That was what happened on the Memnon while Denis watched her dipping out of sight.
What happened next was that Devenish nearly knocked his servant, Jewson, from top to bottom of the companion hatch; the man just managed to clutch the rail, and was called roughly into his master's cabin forthwith.
"Sorry I upset you, Jewson, but you should have got out of my way. You were listening, of course?"