As he listened to these stirring words, Maynard’s eyes were gradually turned away from Newport—his thoughts from Julia Girdwood.
“It may be all for the best,” reflected he, as he gazed down upon the phosphoric track. “Even could I have won her, which is doubtful, she’s not the sort for a wife; and that’s what I’m now wanting. Certain, I shall never see her again. Perhaps the old adage will still prove true,” he continued, as if the situation had suggested it: “‘Good fish in the sea as ever were caught.’ Scintillations ahead, yet unseen, brilliant as those we are leaving behind us!”
Chapter Seventeen.
“The Coward!”
The steamer that carried Captain Maynard and his fortunes out of the Narraganset Bay, had not rounded Point Judith before his name in the mouths of many became a scorned word. The gross insult he had put upon the English stranger had been witnessed by a score of gentlemen, and extensively canvassed by all who had heard of it. Of course there would be a “call out,” and some shooting. Nothing less could be expected after such an affront.
It was a surprise, when the discovery came, that the insulter had stolen off; for this was the interpretation put upon it.
To many it was a chagrin. Not much was known of Captain Maynard, beyond that public repute the newspapers had given to his name, in connection with the Mexican war.
This, however, proved him to have carried a commission in the American army; and as it soon became understood that his adversary was an officer in that of England, it was but natural there should be some national feeling called forth by the affair. “After all,” said they, “Maynard is not an American!” It was some palliation of his supposed poltroonery that he had stayed all day at the hotel, and that his adversary had not sent the challenge till after he was gone.