Nora appeared happier. This buccaneer of hers was becoming more tractable, but he perversely hauled about on another tack and added:
“As long as there are ships to sail the sea, there will be men to go in them, men that will never tire of salt water though it treats them cruel. They will hear the voices of sweethearts and wives on shore, but they will not listen. The hands of little children will beckon, but they will not stay. ’Tis fine to be warm and dry in a house, and to see the green things grow, and men and women living like Christians, but if you are the seafarin’ kind, you must find a ship and put out of port again. I am one of those that will never tire of it, Miss Forbes. Poor old Johnny Kent is different. He sits and sighs for his farm and will talk you deaf about it. My father was a shipmaster before me, and his people were fishermen in the Western Islands.”
Nora sighed. O’Shea’s caressing voice rose and fell with a sort of melancholy rhythm, an inheritance from his Celtic forebears. It was as though he were chanting a farewell to her. Her lovely, luminous eyes were suffused. The wind was warm and soft, but she shivered slightly.
“We had better turn back to the camp,” said she. “My aunt will be looking for me.”
They walked along the shining beach, thinking many things which could not find expression. O’Shea left her near her tent and was about to go to his own quarters when he overheard a stormy meeting between Nora and Gerald Van Steen. He hastened on his way, ashamed that he should have been an unwitting eavesdropper. It was most emphatically none of his business. His cheek reddened, however, and he felt gusty anger that Nora should be taken to task for strolling to the end of the key with him.
“A jealous man is the most unreasonable work of God,” he said to himself. “’Twas a harmless walk we had.”
Duty diverted Captain O’Shea from considering the disturbed emotions of Gerald Van Steen. Rations must be measured out and inspected, the muster roll called, the sick visited, and the sentries appointed for the night. He had finished these tasks and was standing near his tent when Van Steen approached in a hurried, angry manner. Surmising the cause, O’Shea caught him by the arm and led him in the direction of the beach, away from the curious eyes and ears of the camp.
Van Steen wrenched himself free with a threatening gesture. He had worked himself into a passion childishly irrational. O’Shea was inwardly amused, but his face was grave as he inquired:
“Why these hostile symptoms? Do not shout it all over the place. Tell it to me easy and get it out of your system.”
This casual reception rather stumped young Mr. Van Steen. He gulped, made a false start or two, and sullenly replied: