“It’s—it’s impossible to fight like this,” he said lamely. “I am not accustomed to fight with women.”
“Does it matter, so long as a woman can fight?” Kate cried quickly. “Chivalry?” she went on contemptuously. “That’s surely a survival of ages when the old curfew rang, and a lot of other stupid notions filled folks’ minds. I—I just love to fight.”
Her smile was so frankly infectious that Fyles found himself responding. He heaved a sigh.
“It’s no good,” he said almost hopelessly. “You must stick to your belief, and I to mine. All I hope, Miss Kate, is that when I’ve done with this matter the pain I’ve inflicted on you will not be unforgivable.”
The woman’s eyes were turned away. They had become very soft as she gazed over at the distant view of Charlie’s house.
“I don’t think it will be,” she said gently. Then with a quick return to her earlier manner: “You see, you will never get the chance of hurting Charlie.” A moment later she inquired naively: “When is the cargo coming in?”
But Fyles’s exasperation was complete.
“When?” he cried. “Why, when this scamp is ready for it. It’s—it’s no use, Miss Kate. I can’t stop, or—or I’ll be forgetting you are a woman, and say ‘Damn!’ I admit you have bested me, but—young Bryant hasn’t. I——” he broke off, laughing in spite of his annoyance, and Kate cordially joined in.
“But he will,” she cried, as Peter began to move away. “Good-bye, Mr. Fyles,” she added, in her ironical fashion as she picked up her sewing. “I can get on with these important matters—now.”
The man’s farewell was no less cordial, and his better sense told him that in accepting his defeat at her hands he had won a good deal in another direction where he hoped to finally achieve her capitulation.