“Please, what has that got to do with Mr. Hazeltine's visits here?”
“Why, why, nothin', I s'pose, if you say so. I jest thought—”
“What right have you to suppose that Mr. Hazeltine is calling on me more than any other person or persons in this house?”
This was something of a poser, but the Captain did his best. He sat on the edge of a chair and rubbed his knee, and then blurted out, “Well, I s'pose I—that is, we thought he was, jest 'cause he nat'rally would; that's 'bout all. If I'd thought—why, see here, Elsie, don't YOU think he's comin' to see you?”
This was a return thrust that was hard to parry, but, although the young lady's color heightened just a bit, she answered without much hesitation:
“I don't know that I do. At any rate, I have given you no authority to act on any such assumption, and I DON'T want you to put me again in the ridiculous position you did this evening, and as you have done so often before. Why, his visits might be perfect torture to me, and still I should have to endure them out of common politeness. I couldn't go away and leave him alone.”
Captain Jerry's face was a study of chagrin and troubled repentance.
“Elsie,” he said, “I'm awful sorry; I am so. If I'd thought I was torturin' of you, 'stead of makin' it pleasant, I'd never have done it, sure. I won't go out again; I won't, honest. I hope you won't lay it up against me. I meant well.”
Now, if Captain Perez had delayed his entrance to that dining room only two or three minutes longer, if he had not come in just in time to prevent Elsie's making the explanatory and soothing answer that was on her tongue, events would probably have been entirely different, and a good deal of trouble might have been saved. But in he came, as if some perverse imp had been waiting to give him the signal, and the interview between Captain Jerry and the young lady whom he had unwittingly offended broke off then and there.
Elsie went upstairs feeling a little conscience-stricken, and with an uneasy idea that she had said more than she should have. Captain Perez took up the newspaper and sat down to read. As for Captain Jerry, he sat down, too, but merely to get his thoughts assorted into an arrangement less like a spilled box of jackstraws. The Captain's wonderful scheme, that he had boasted of and worked so hard for, had fallen to earth like an exploded airship, and when it hit it hurt.