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To Jane there was in the tone a quality which made her compare it with the elder Cleigh's eyes agate-hard. "You are younger and stronger, and no doubt you could break me. But the moment my hand is withdrawn from this business the moment I am off the board I could not vouch for the crew. They are more or less decent chaps, or they were before this damned war stood humanity on its head.
Cleigh literally snatched it from the astonished butler's grasp, pried and tore off a board. He dug away at the excelsior until he felt the cool glass under his fingers. He peered through this glass. "Denny, it's the rug!" Cleigh's voice cracked and broke into a queer treble note. Jane shook her head.
"And don't forget, Cleigh, that I'm master of the Wanderer until I leave it. I sympathize deeply," Cunningham went on, ironically, "but I have some active troubles of my own." "And God send they abide with you always!" was Cleigh's retort. "They will if that will give you any comfort. Do you know what? You will always have me to thank for this. That will be my comforting thought.
The mockery on the face and the irony on the tongue of the man disturbed Cleigh. Supposing the rogue had his eye on that rug? To what lengths might he not go to possess it? And he had the infernal ingenuity of his master, Beelzebub. Or was he just trying Anthony Cleigh's nerves to see whether they were sound or raw? "But the beads!" he said. "I'm sorry. Simply Morrissy ran amuck."
If he were poring over his chart, his glance would drift away; if he were reading, the printed page had a peculiar way of vanishing. Of course it was all nonsense. But that night in Shanghai something had drawn him irresistibly to young Cleigh's table. It might have been the colour of her hair. At any rate, he hadn't noticed the beads until he had spoken to young Cleigh. Glass beads! Queer twist.
They ain't bad, understand; just young and heady and wanting a little fun. They growl a lot because they can't sleep on deck. They growl because there's nothing to drink. Of course it might hurt Cleigh's feelings, but I'd like to see all his grog go by the board. You see, sir, it ain't as if we'd just dropped down from Shanghai. It's been tarnation dull ever since we left San Francisco."
If you had been a comrade to him in his boyhood he would never have been in the wrong." "But I gave him everything!" "Everything but love. Did you ever tell him a fairy story?" "A fairy story!" Cleigh's face was the essence of bewilderment. "You put him in the care of a lovable old dreamer, and then expected him to accept life as you knew it." Cleigh rumpled his cowlicks. A fairy story?
"How is that done?" The irony was so gentle that she fell silent for a space. "Are you going to take Mr. Cleigh's paintings when you leave us?" "My dear young lady, all I have left to be proud of is my word. I give it to you that I am going after pearls. It may sound crazy, but I can't help that. I am realizing a dream. I'm something of a fatalist I've had to be.
Only a single lamp was on, but that was enough. Anthony Cleigh's iron-gray head towering above a whirlwind of fists and forearms! What had happened? This couldn't be real! She was still in her chair on deck, and what she saw was nightmare! Out of the calm, all in a moment, this! Where was Denny, if this picture wasn't nightmare?
Perhaps it was his ever-bubbling sense of malice that decided him to let her minister to him, with the Cleighs on the bridge to watch and boil with indignation. He nodded, and she followed him to the hatch, where he sat down. Dennison saw his father's hands strain on the bridge rail, the presage of a gathering storm. He intervened by a rough seizure of Cleigh's arm. "Listen to me, Father!
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