Cunningham plowed his fingers through his hair, gripped and pulled it in a kind of ecstasy. Cleigh’s phiz. The memory of it would keep him in good humour all day. After all, there was a lot of good sport in the world. The days were all right. It was only in the quiet vigils of the night that the uninvited thought intruded. On board the old Dutch tramp he would sleep o’nights, and the past would present only a dull edge. 227
If the atoll had cocoanut palms, hang it, he would build a shack and make it his winter home! Dolce far niente! Maybe he might take up the brush again and do a little amateur painting. Yes, in the daytime the old top wasn’t so bad. He hoped he would have no more nonsense from Flint. A surly beggar, but a necessary pawn in the game.
Pearls! Some to sell and some to play with. Lovely, tenderly beautiful pearls—a rope of them round Jane Norman’s throat. He slid off the chair. As a fool, he hung in the same gallery as the Cleighs.
Cleigh ate his breakfast alone. Upon inquiry he learned that Jane was indisposed and that Dennison had gone into the pantry and picked up his breakfast there. Cleigh found the day unspeakably dull. He read, played the phonograph, and tried all the solitaires he knew; but a hundred times he sensed the want of the pleasant voice of the girl in his ears.
What would she be demanding of him as a reparation? He was always sifting this query about, now on this side, now on that, without getting anywhere. Not money. What then?
That night both Jane and Dennison came in to dinner. Cleigh saw instantly that something was amiss. The boy’s face was gloomy and his lips 228 locked, and the girl’s mouth was set and cheerless. Cleigh was fired by curiosity to ascertain the trouble, but here again was an impasse.
“I’m sorry I spoke so roughly last night,” said Dennison, unexpectedly.
“And I am sorry that I answered you so sharply. But all this worry and fuss over me is getting on my nerves. You’ve written down Cunningham as a despicable rogue, when he is only an interesting one. If only you would give banter for banter, you might take some of the wind out of his sails. But instead you go about as if the next hour was to be our last!”
“Who knows?”
“There you go! In a minute we’ll be digging up the hatchet again.”