“I felt like a kid again,” said Harrigan,
recovering from the brogue. “Like a kid
sittin’ on the pierhead an’ watchin’
the green water. Your eyes are that green,”
he finished.
Self-consciousness, the very thing which she had been
trying to keep the big sailor from, turned her blood
to fire. She knew the quick color was running
from throat to cheek; she knew the cold, incurious
eye would note the change. He was so far aware
of the alteration that he rose and glanced at the
door.
“Good-by,” she said, and then quite forgetting
herself: “I shall ask the captain to see
that you are treated like a white man.”
“You will not!”
“I beg your pardon?” she said, but the
hint of insulted dignity was lost on Harrigan.
“You will not,” he repeated. “It’d
simply make him worse.”
She was glad of the chance to be angry; it would explain
her heightening color.
“The captain must be an utter brute.”
“I figger he’s nine tenths man, an’
the other tenth devil, but there ain’t no human
bein’ can change any of them ten parts.
Good-by. I’m thankin’ you. My
name’s Harrigan.”
She opened the door for him.
“If you wish to have that dressing changed,
ask for Miss Malone.”
“Ah-h!” said Harrigan. “Malone!”
She explained coldly: “I’m Scotch,
not Irish.”
“Scotch or Irish,” said Harrigan, and
his head tilted back as it always did when he was
excited. “You’re afther bein’
a real shport, Miss Malone!”
“Miss Malone,” she repeated, closing the
door after him, and vainly attempting to imitate the
thrill which he gave to the word. “What
a man!”
She smiled for a moment into space and then pulled
the cord for the cabin boy.
The cabin boy did duty for all the dozen passengers,
and therefore he was slow in answering. When
he appeared, she asked him to carry the captain word
that she wished to speak with him. He returned
in a short time to say that Captain McTee would talk
with her now in his cabin. She followed aft to
the captain’s room. He did not rise when
she entered, but turned in his chair and relinquished
a long, black, fragrant cigar.
“Don’t stop smoking,” she said.
“I want you in a pleasant mood to hear what
I have to say.”
Without reply he placed the cigar in his mouth and
the bright black eyes fastened upon her. That
suddenly intent regard was startling, as if he had
leaned over and spoken a word in her ear. She
shrugged her shoulders as if trying to shake off a
compelling hand and then settled into a chair.
“I’ve come to say something that’s
disagreeable for you to hear and for me to speak.”
Still he would not talk. He was as silent as
Harrigan. She clenched her hands and drove bravely
ahead. She told how she had called the red-headed
sailor up to the after-cabin and dressed his hurts,
and she described succinctly, but with rising anger
the raw and swollen condition of his fingers.
The captain listened with apparent enjoyment; she
could not tell whether he was relishing her story or
his slowly puffed cigar. In the end she waited
for his answer, but evidently none was forthcoming.
