"What do you mean? I haven't handled him right? I've blundered? I—" He laughed without any mirth. "See here, Nancy, my dear, you're a bright girl, but don't hand me your worry for this darn fool. You're kind of tender-hearted. You guess it's a pretty tough thing to see a good-looker boy go down in a big commercial fight. That's because you're a woman. This sort of thing's part of business. It's harsher, more ruthless than even war on the battlefield with guns, and bombs, and stinking gas. We're going to fight this thing just that way. There's no mercy for Mr. Bull Sternford. He'll get all I can hand him just the way I know best how to hand it. And the tougher I can make it the better it'll please me. See? Now you just run right along and see to those things that are going to make you big in the Skandinavia, and don't give a thought for the feller who's handed me stuff I don't stand for in any man. There's liable to be big work for you in this fight, and I'd say you'll make as good in fight as in peace. You've got my goodwill anyway, my dear, just for all it's worth. That's all."
* * * * *
The door had closed behind the girl. Elas Peterman was on his feet pacing the thickly carpeted floor. There was no longer any attempt at disguise. A surge of jealous fury was raging through his hot heart and drove him mercilessly.
The picture of Nancy, radiantly beautiful, seated at dinner with Bull Sternford had lit a fire of bitter hatred in his Teutonic heart. So he paced the room and permitted the fierce tide to flood the channels of sanity and set them awash with the ready evil of his impulse.
From the first moment of the girl's story of her successful effort with this man, Sternford, this vaunting rival, Peterman had been bitterly stirred. The man's change of plans at her bidding he had understood on the instant. The man from Labrador had not changed his plans at the bidding of the Skandinavia. It was the girl who had induced him. It was she who had attracted him. Then the boat trip, and the girl's confession of his having, perhaps, saved her life. What had preceded that incident? What had followed it? And when Elas Peterman asked himself such questions it was simple for him to find the answer. He had seen Sternford, and had judged the position. He knew what would have happened had he been in this man's place. Sternford wasn't the man to throw away such chances, either. He had fallen for the girl, and she doubtless had—The picture he had witnessed at the Chateau had left him without any doubt. The driving up together from the docks, the telephone. Sternford had taken her to her apartment. Oh, it was all as clear as daylight. Then the girl's pity for the man who was to feel the weight of the Skandinavia's wrathful might. She had said he was reasonable. She had hinted that he, Peterman, had blundered. There was only one reasonable interpretation to the position. And it did not leave him guessing for one single moment.
Once he passed a fleshy hand up over his forehead and brushed back his dark hair. Once he came to a pause before his window and stood gazing out at the falling snow with hot eyes. No such fury of jealousy had ever entered into his life before. Never had he dreamed before of the tremendous hold this girl had obtained upon him. His claim on her had all seemed so natural, so easy. He had looked upon her as property that was indisputably his. He might have learned something from his feelings when he had paraded her before Hellbeam. But he had not done so. Now he knew. Now he knew the whole measure of them. And the bitterness of his awakening was maddening.
Well, Bull Sternford should get away with no play of that sort at his expense. He warned himself that he was no simple fool to be played with. And if Nancy wanted the man— But he broke away from under the lash of impotent fury, and turned to a channel of thought which was bound to serve a nature such as his in his present mood.
He returned to his desk and flung himself into the chair. And after a while his mind settled itself to the task his mood demanded. He sat staring straight ahead of him, and presently the heat passed out of his eyes, and they grew cold, and hard. Later, they began to smile again—but it was a smile of cruelty, of evil purpose. It was a smile more unrelenting in its cruelty than any frown could have expressed.
* * * * *
For the first time Nancy's eyes were open to the things of life as they really were. She had tasted a certain bitterness in the early days of her girlhood. But up till now the world had seemed something of a rose garden in which it was a delight to labour. Up till now she had seen no reverse to the picture of life as youth had painted it for her. Now, however, it was borne in upon her that there was a reverse, a reverse that was ugly and painfully distressing. It was this declaration of war between her own people and the man from Labrador.