There was in the adventurer's tone a menace, bitter and not to be ignored; which Mulready saw fit to challenge.
"I think not," he declared; "I think not. I'm weary of your addle-pated suspicions. It'd be plain to any one but a fool that I acted for the best interests of all concerned in this matter. If you're not content to see it in that light, I'm done."
"Oh, if you want to put it that way, I'm not content, Mr. Mulready," retorted Calendar dangerously.
"Please yourself. I bid you good evening and—good-by." The man took a step toward the stairs.
Calendar dropped his right hand into his top-coat pocket. "Just a minute," he said sweetly, and Mulready stopped. Abruptly the fat adventurer's smoldering resentment leaped in flame. "That'll be about all, Mr. Mulready! 'Bout face, you hound, and get into that boat! D'you think I'll temporize with you till Doomsday? Then forget it. You're wrong, dead wrong. Your bluff's called, and"—with an evil chuckle—"I hold a full house, Mulready,—every chamber taken." He lifted meaningly the hand in the coat pocket. "Now, in with you."
With a grin and a swagger of pure bravado Mulready turned and obeyed. Unnoticed of any, save perhaps Calendar himself, the boat had drawn in at the stage a moment earlier. Mulready dropped into it and threw himself sullenly upon the midships thwart.
"Now, Dorothy, in you go, my dear," continued Calendar, with a self-satisfied wag of his head.
Half dazed, to all seeming, she moved toward the boat. With clumsy and assertive gallantry her father stepped before her, offering his hand,—his hand which she did not touch; for, in the act of descending, she remembered and swung impulsively back to Kirkwood.
"Good night, Mr. Kirkwood; good night,—I shan't forget."
He took her hand and bowed above it; but when his head was lifted, he still retained her fingers in a lingering clasp.