“Yes. He wasn’t nice at all, he was common, when he stopped acting.”
“Wonderful chap, though,” mused George. “Must say I enjoyed his company. Couldn’t put up with him any more, however. Well, we won’t have to. We’ll leave him here—we’ll sail tonight. Wilson can be captain. We’ll have to go some place and get a new crew, I suppose. Then we’ll go on to Petroff Sound. I—I’m really much better, Betty,” he added softly.
“Of course you are, George. You don’t know how glad I am to see you yourself again.”
“Really, Betty?”
“Of course.”
“It’s going to be all right now, Betty. I’ll make it all up to you.”
“Of course you will, George,” she said, and I splashed my paddle in the water so I might not hear.
I was an outsider, an incident. My mission had been to help straighten out a tangle for which George’s condition had been responsible. I had succeeded. Good and well. Now Betty would have George’s attention. She would see him as she had seen him when first she had learned to care for him; she would care for him again. She would forget Brack. She would forget this adventure. In her proper sphere back home it would become an incident; it would be something to laugh over—with George.
So I reasoned as we paddled down Kalmut Fiord, our eyes confidently searching the darkness ahead for the first flash of the Wanderer’s welcoming lights. So little did I know about women, and especially about Miss Beatrice Baldwin.
Presently George stopped paddling.