“Yes,” answered Purcell; “and so does Phil Rodney.”
“You’re right,” agreed the other. “But she isn’t a patch on her sister though; and never will be. I was looking at Maggie as we came down the beach this morning and thinking what a handsome girl she is. Don’t you agree with me?”
Purcell stooped to look under the boom and answered without turning his head:
“Yes, she’s all right.”
“All right!” exclaimed the other. “Is that the way—”
“Look here, Varney,” interrupted Purcell; “I don’t want to discuss my wife’s looks with you or any other man. She’ll do for me or I shouldn’t have married her.”
A deep, coppery flush stole into Varney’s cheeks. But he had brought the rather brutal snub on himself and apparently had the fairness to recognize the fact, for he mumbled an apology and relapsed into silence.
When he next spoke he did so with a manner diffident and uneasy as though approaching a disagreeable or difficult subject.
“There’s a little matter, Dan, that I’ve been wanting to speak to you about when we got a chance of a private talk.” He glanced a little anxiously at his stolid companion, who grunted, and then, without removing his gaze from the horizon ahead, replied: “You’ve a pretty fair chance now, seeing that we shall be bottled up together for another five or six hours. And it’s private enough unless you bawl loud enough to be heard at the Longships.”
It was not a gracious invitation. But that Varney had hardly expected; and if he resented the rebuff he showed no sign of annoyance, for reasons which appeared when he opened his subject.