He tried not to think—of Ruth with her mother's locket, of her misguided father, taking his lonely way to sea. He drew compellingly upon his new characters to keep him out of this melancholy channel; but they ebbed and ebbed; he could not hold them. Enschede: no human emotion should ever again shuttle between him and God. As if God would not continue to mock him so long as his brain held a human thought! God had given him a pearl without price, and he had misunderstood until this day.
McClintock was in a gay mood at dinner that night; but he did not see fit to give these children the true reason. For a long time there had been a standing offer from the company at Copeley's to take over the McClintock plantation; and to-day he had decided to sell. Why? Because he knew that when these two young people left, the island would become intolerable. For nearly thirty years he had lived here in contented loneliness; then youth had to come and fill him with discontent.
He would give The Tigress a triple coat of paint, and take these two on a long cruise, wherever they wanted to go—Roundhead and Seraph, the blunderbus and the flaming angel. And there was another matter. To have sprung this upon them to-night would have been worth a thousand pounds. But his lips were honour-locked.
There was a pint of champagne and a quart of mineral water (both taboo) at his elbow. In a tall glass the rind of a Syrian orange was arranged in spiral form. The wine bubbled and seethed; and the exquisite bouquet of oranges permeated the room.
"I sha'n't offer any of these to you two," he said; "but I know you won't mind me having an imitation king's peg. The occasion is worth a dash of the grape, lad. You're on the way to big things. A thousand dollars is a lot of money for an author to earn."
Spurlock laughed. "Drink your peg; don't bother about me. I wouldn't touch the stuff for all the pearls in India. A cup of lies. I know all about it."
Ruth's eyes began to glow. She had often wondered if Hoddy would ever go back to it. She knew now that he never would.
"Sometimes a cup of lies is a cheering thing," replied the trader.
"In wine there is truth. What about that?"
"It means that drink cheats a man into telling things he ought not to. And there's your liver."
"Ay, and there's my liver. It'll be turning over to-morrow. But never mind that," said McClintock grinning as he drew the dish of bread-fruit toward him. "To-morrow I shall have a visitor. I do not say guest because that suggests friendship; and I am no friend of this Wastrel. I've told you about him; and you wrote a shrewd yarn on the subject."