“He wants to fight a duel! ’Tis quite the proper thing. He figures it out that he is a buccaneer on a desert island, and ’tis his duty to play the part. Consistency is a jewel.”
It seemed improbable that Van Steen had acted wholly on his own initiative. Then the provocation must have come from Nora herself. And what could have aroused Van Steen to such a jealous frenzy but her admission that she was fond of the company of Captain O’Shea?
“Right there is where I stop tryin’ to unravel it,” soliloquized the skipper. “’Tis not proper for a man to confess such thoughts. But I have no doubt at all that she stirred him up when he scolded her for walking on the beach with me this afternoon.”
In the evening Johnny Kent became inquisitive. There was something on his mind, and he shifted about uneasily and lighted his pipe several times before venturing to observe:
“I sort of wandered down to the beach, Cap’n Mike, when you and the millionaire coal-heaver were quarrellin’. I didn’t mean to butt in and I hung back as long as I could——”
“Forget whatever you heard, Johnny. It was a tempest in a teapot.”
The engineer scratched another match, cleared his throat, and diffidently resumed:
“Excuse me, but there was words about a duel. I was interested—personally interested, you understand.”
“How in blazes did it concern you?” laughed O’Shea.
“Never you mind,” darkly answered Johnny Kent. “Tell me, Cap’n Mike, ain’t you goin’ to inform the young lady that there came near being a duel fought over her?”