“Why?”
“Why,” he said, as his instrument began to crackle. He turned to take a message. “Brack’s a devil toward men, but that ain’t a marker to what he is with women.”
IX
While I stood watching Pierce busied at his instruments Simmons came climbing up with word that Mr. Chanler wished me to come to his stateroom. The sky had begun to clear to the eastward by now; a rift of clean blue Spring heaven was showing through the great pall of Winter-like gray clouds; and as I entered Chanler’s stateroom the sun broke through and relieved the ugly monotony of the raw day.
Chanler was trailing his mandarin-like dressing-gown behind him as he paced the room, and his face was not the face of a man at ease.
“Gardy,” he said, “I want to talk with you. Got to talk with you. Brack’s all right to drink with; Doc Olson doesn’t talk at all; you’re the only one fit to talk to on board. ’Member I started to tell you yesterday how I discovered I had to do something useful, and then I changed my mind and didn’t tell you after all? Well, I’m going to tell you the whole story now. Gardy, how much do you know about women—girls?”
By this time I was prepared for any turn of thought on Chanler’s part and replied—“Not as much as you do, that’s sure.”
The careless reply seemed exactly what he wished to hear. He nodded gravely.
“That’s right. You don’t know how right that is. You may know a lot about ’em, Gardy, but I know more. I’ve learned a lot about ’em lately, a whole lot. You think that Brack, and those Petroff Sound mammoths, and old Doc Harper are responsible for this little trip we’re on. Well, they’re not.”
He paused, then concluded slowly—