The expert went away grumbling, and the father, after another glance, which showed him his daughter nestling comfortably on the mate’s right shoulder, stole away and brooded darkly over this crowning complication. An ordinary man would have run down and interrupted them; the master of the Jessica thought he could attain his ends more certainly by diplomacy, and so careful was his demeanour that the couple in the cabin had no idea that they had been observed—the mate listening calmly to a lecture on incipient idiocy which the skipper thought it advisable to bestow.
Until the mid-day meal on the day following he made no sign. If anything he was even more affable than usual, though his wrath rose at the glances which were being exchanged across the table.
“By the way, Jack,” he said at length, “what’s become of Kitty Loney?”
“Who?” inquired the mate. “Who’s Kitty Loney?”
It was now the skipper’s turn to stare, and he did it admirably.
“Kitty Loney,” he said in surprise, “the little girl you are going to marry.”
“Who are you getting at?” said the mate, going scarlet as he met the gaze opposite.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said the skipper with dignity. “I’m allooding to Kitty Loney, the little girl in the red hat and white feathers you introduced to me as your future.”
The mate sank back in his seat, and regarded him with open-mouthed, horrified astonishment.
“You don’t mean to say you’ve chucked ’er,” pursued the heartless skipper, “after getting an advance from me to buy the ring with, too? Didn’t you buy the ring with the money?”