"You are right, major, and I gladly confess I used a dashed stupid expression—so now, if you don't mind, please shut up about it," replied O'Rourke. To his surprise Farrington smiled, nodded in a knowing way, and lapsed into silence.
While one of the mariners was relating a fearsome experience of his own on a wrecked schooner, Mr. Cuddlehead entered the place and seated himself at the unoccupied table. He sipped his peg, and studied the men at the other table with shifting glances. He thought they looked easy, and a vastly satisfied expression came to his unhealthy, old-young face. Though well groomed and well clothed, Mr. Cuddlehead's deportment suggested, however vaguely, a feeling on his part of personal insecurity. He glanced apprehensively whenever a voice was raised high in argument. He started in his chair when the man who served the refreshments came unexpectedly to his table to deposit a match-holder.
To O'Rourke, who had an eye for things beyond the dice, Mr. Cuddlehead's face hinted at some strange ways of life, and undesirable traits of character. In the loose mouth he saw signs of a once colossal impudence; in the bloated cheeks, dissipation and the wrecking existence of one who feasts to-day and starves to-morrow; in the eyes cruelty and cunning; in the chin and forehead a low sort of courage.
Gradually the crowd at the long table thinned. First of all the cavalry officer arose, flicked imaginary dust off the front of his baggy trousers, and jangled out into the reddening sunlight. The planters followed, after hearty farewells. They had long rides ahead of them to occupy the cool of the evening, and perhaps would not leave their isolated bungalows again inside a fortnight. Next the operators announced their intentions of deserting the giddy scene.
"Come along, major, you and Joyce promised to feed with us to-night," said one of them, "and if your friend there, Mr. O'Rourke, will overlook the informality of so sudden an invitation," he continued, "we'll be delighted to have him, too."
"Great heavens, Darlington," exclaimed the major, "you are still as long-winded as when you first came out," and, before O'Rourke could accept the invitation for himself, he concluded, "of course O'Rourke will honour you, my boy."
"Thank you, very much, it's awfully good of you chaps," stammered O'Rourke, disconcerted by the major's offhand manner.
Darlington smiled reassuringly. "Don't let this old cock rattle you," he said, and patted Major Farrington affectionately on the shoulder.
After dinner that night, in the palatial dining-room of the house occupied by the staff of the South American Cable Company, O'Rourke learned something of the major's past life. It was a sad and unedifying story. The major had been trained at West Point, and led his class in scholarship and drill, and had risen, with more than one distinction, to the rank of major. But all the while he had made his fight against drink, as well as the usual handicaps in the game of life. He had married a woman with wealth and position superior to his own, who had admired him for his soldierly qualities and fine appearance, and who, later, had been the first to desert him. Then followed the foreign consular appointments, the bitter and ever-increasing debaucheries, and at last the forced retirement from his country's service. Now he lived on a small allowance, sent him weekly, by his family. O'Rourke began to understand the old man's fretful and disconcerting moods.
At a late hour the superintendent of the staff ushered O'Rourke to a big, cool room on the second floor.