“I hope—I hope you won’t be unhappy.”
“Unhappy!” Sam produced a strangled noise from his larynx like the cry of a shrimp in pain. “Unhappy! Ha! ha! I’m not unhappy! Whatever gave you that idea? I’m smiling! I’m laughing! I feel I’ve had a merciful escape. Oh, ha, ha!”
“It’s very unkind and rude of you to say that.”
“It reminds me of a moving picture I saw in New York. It was called ‘Saved from the Scaffold.’”
“Oh!”
“I’m not unhappy! What have I got to be unhappy about? What on earth does any man want to get married for? I don’t. Give me my gay bachelor life! My Uncle Charlie used to say ‘It’s better luck to get married than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.’ But he was a man who always looked on the bright side. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And good-bye—for ever.”
He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken bravely; the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he had made a good exit. But already his heart was aching.
As he drew near to his state-room, he was amazed and disgusted to hear a high tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed door.
“I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor,
Though his lance be sharrrp and—er keen;
But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour
Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen:
I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour....”
Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should still be alive was bad—he had pictured him hurling himself overboard and bobbing about, a pleasing sight in the wake of the vessel; that he should be singing was an outrage. Remorse, Sam felt, should have stricken Eustace Hignett dumb. Instead of which, here he was comporting himself like a blasted linnet. It was all wrong. The man could have no conscience whatever.