“Oh, hang it all,” cried Henry Tremaine, “ten thousand dollars isn’t all the money in the world. It isn’t all the money in my little world, either. This will all come out all right. I want to be a decent fellow, and I would be, too, if this raging head of mine would only let me.”
“I’ll help you to a seat, dear, and bathe your head,” suggested Mrs. Tremaine, to which suggestion her husband assented.
“I must go on deck, now—simply must,” announced Halstead. “Yet I’d feel better about it if one of you could come up with me—just to see that I don’t dispose of the money, you know,” he added, with a wan attempt at a smile.
“I’m not needed here; I’ll go with you, Captain,” spoke up Ida Silsbee.
“No, no, no!” protested Dixon, almost hoarsely, as he pressed forward. “I will go.”
“By all means, Mr. Dixon, if you wish,” replied Ida Silsbee, flashing a curious look at him. “But I’m going with Captain Halstead, anyway, and I think you might better remain here, to be of possible service to Mrs. Tremaine.”
“But—but you’ll be in danger on deck,” objected Dixon.
“I doubt it,” retorted Ida Silsbee, with a toss of her head. “But even so, I shall be in the care of two whose bravery I have been made to respect.”
“As you will, then,” replied Dixon, in what he meant to be a coaxing voice. Yet his scowling look followed Tom Halstead.
“It was tremendously good of you——” murmured the young skipper, as the two walked through the passageway.