As thus stated by Edmund, the proposition seemed to me quite a harmless ruse de guerre. I was suspicious of all commercial methods, and nothing would have induced me for instance to co-operate in anything like the trading habits of our grocer, who was nevertheless, as I have already mentioned, one of the most eminent members of my Sunday congregation. But I saw nothing in this transaction to which anyone could object who kept his conscience in reasonable subjection, and I said so frankly.
Captain Welfare’s tension immediately relaxed. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh and wiped his forehead and upper lip with his handkerchief. As the evening was now cool, and no amount of heat ever seemed able to make Captain Welfare perspire, this was a sure indication that he had been in a condition of considerable mental agitation. He drew a long breath and I saw at once that he was under the necessity of making a speech. This happened to him sometimes, just as other men get periodical attacks of asthma or gall-stones.
“Mr. Davoren, sir,” he began, after clearing his throat in the most approved oratorical style, “I think this is the third time as we’ve had to put before you a proposition that must have seemed distasteful to you. A proposition you might have been justified in refusing without examination, if so be you had been a man as is not prepared to look into things and do the square thing, and the kind thing, and the generous thing——”
“Oh, stow it, Welfare!” said Edmund.
But Captain Welfare was not to be stopped now, any more than a body of stampeded mules. He ignored Edmund, who stretched out his legs, shut his eyes, and pretended to go to sleep.
“I want to put it on record, sir, as I appreciate—as we appreciate the handsome way you have met us on these occasions. You’ve acted as a gentleman, sir, because you are a gentleman, and as a man because—well—because you are a man.”
There was a prolonged groan from Edmund.
“I wish to thank you, sir, for the spirit in which you have met all our suggestions.”
I felt extremely embarrassed.
The Astarte lay becalmed and almost motionless between the still glowing desert shore and the vast disc of the sun, now falling through a mass of slate-coloured vapour to his setting. In all this golden and purple immensity there was no living thing in sight outside the ship, which was suspended like a fragment of dust in a sunbeam. The only human sound was Captain Welfare’s egregious clap-trap.