She remembered and nodded.
“But wait a moment,” he added. “How do you know that this—this fellow Brandes will not attempt to sail on her, also––” Something checked him, for in the girl’s golden-grey eyes he saw a flame glimmer; something almost terrible came into the child’s still 127 gaze; and slowly died out like the afterglow of lightning.
And Neeland knew that in her soul something had been born under his very eyes—the first emotion of maturity bursting from the chrysalis—the flaming consciousness of outrage, and the first, fierce assumption of womanhood to resent it.
She had lost her colour now; her grey eyes still remained fixed on his, but the golden tinge had left them.
“I don’t know why you shouldn’t go,” he said abruptly.
“I am going.”
“All right! And if he has the nerve to go—if he bothers you—appeal to the captain.”
She nodded absently.
“But I don’t believe he’ll try to sail. I don’t believe he’d dare, mixed up as he is in a dirty mess. He’s afraid of the law, I tell you. That’s why he denied marrying you. It meant bigamy to admit it. Anyway, I don’t think a fake ceremony like that is binding; I mean that it isn’t even real enough to put him in jail. Which means that you’re not married, Rue.”
“Does it?”