“How dare you use that tone to me? Have you any right to tell me what I shall and shall not do?” she stormed at him. “I’ve got to talk to someone. You go about in one perpetual gloom. I purpose to see and talk to Cunningham as often as I please. At least he amuses me.”
With this she rushed past him and on to her cabin, the door of which she closed with such emphasis that it was heard all over the yacht—so sharp was the report that both Cleigh and Dodge awoke and sat up, half convinced that they had heard a pistol shot!
Jane sat down on her bed, still furious. After a while she was able to understand something of this fury. The world was upside down, wrong end to. Dennison, not Cunningham, should have acted the debonair, the nonchalant. Before this adventure began he had been witty, amusing, companionable; now he was as interesting as a bump on a log. At table he was only a poor counterfeit of his father, whose silence was maintained admirably, at all times impressively dignified. Whereas at each encounter Dennison played directly into Cunningham’s hands, and the latter was too much the banterer not to make the most of these episodes. 216
What if he was worried? Hadn’t she more cause to worry than any one else? For all that, she did not purpose to hide behind the barricaded door of her cabin. If there was a tragedy in the offing it would not fall less heavily because one approached it with melancholy countenance.
Heaven knew that she was no infant as regarded men! In the six years of hospital work she had come into contact with all sorts and conditions of men. Cunningham might be the greatest scoundrel unhung, but so far as she was concerned she need have no fear. This knowledge was instinctive.
But when her cheek touched the pillow she began to cry softly. She was so terribly lonely!
CHAPTER XVIII
The space through which Jane had passed held Dennison’s gaze for two or three minutes. Then he sat down on the companionway step, his arms across his knees and his forehead upon his arms. What to say? What to do? She expected him to be amusing!—when he knew that the calm on board was of the same deceptive quality as that of the sea—below, the terror!