“You are captain! You have the power! That's why I am talking to you, sir!”
“But when you talked with me a little while ago you were crawfishing!” was Captain Downs's blunt objection.
“I am sorry I have been so imprudent. I ought not to be here. I have said so. I do too many things on impulse. Now I want to be married!”
“More impulse, eh?”
“I must be able to face my father.”
There was silence in the saloon.
Mayo shoved trembling fingers into his mouth and bit upon them to keep back what his horrified reason warned him would be a scream of protest. In spite of what his eyes and ears told him, it all seemed to be some sort of hideous unreality.
“It's a big responsibility,” proceeded Captain Downs, mumbling his words and talking half to himself in his uncertainty. “I've been trying to get some light on it from another—from a man who ought to understand more about it than what I do. It's too much of a problem for a man to wrassle with all alone.”
He turned his back on them, gazed at the stateroom door, tipped his cap awry, and scratched his head more vigorously than he had in his past ponderings.
“Say, you in there! Mate!” he called, clumsily preserving Mayo's incognito. “I'm in a pinch. Say what you really think!”